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THE PSYCHOLOGY 
OF REASONING 



THE PSYCHOLOGY 
OF REASONING 



BY 
W. B. PILLSBURY, Ph. D. 

JUNIOR PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, DIRECTOR OF THE PSY- 
CHOLOGICAL LABORATORY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
NEW YORK AND LONDON: 1910 



f5* 



*\ 



Copyright, 1910, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Published May, 1910 



©CI.A2650 



■\ 



All men are mortal, 

Socrates is a man. 
Therefore, Socrates is mortal." 



PREFACE 

This little volume is based upon eight lectures given 
during my tenure of the Non-resident Lectureship in 
Psychology at Columbia University in January and 
February, 1909. The material has been somewhat re- 
arranged and divided into chapters along more nat- 
ural lines than was possible in the lectures. 

My purpose is to give a brief statement of the place 
of the logical processes, particularly judgment and 
inference, in the concrete individual consciousness. 
Confining my discussion to the facts of the individual 
consciousness has compelled me to omit in large 
measure a consideration of the social aspects of reason- 
ing and of the results of the outcome of reasoning in 
action. This omission has not been due to any fail- 
ure to appreciate the importance of these two sides of 
the reasoning process. Kather, Professor Baldwin 
and Professor Dewey have left little to be said on 
these topics. For my own immediate purpose, also, 
society and action are but two of the sources from 
which are drawn the materials of reasoning, and are 
but two of the influences that serve to affect the course 
of reasoning. My problem has been to determine the 
ways in which reasoning has grown out of the simpler 
mental operations, and to discuss the uses that have 
been made of the materials in reasoning, without ref- 
erence to the sources from which the materials have 
been drawn. 

vii 



PREFACE 

Needless to say, I have neglected to discuss or even 
to mention many phases of the reasoning process that 
are important. I should have been very glad to find 
space for a psychological interpretation of fallacies 
and even for the more important forms of the syl- 
logism, but space and the limitations imposed by a 
semi-popular audience made that impossible. I have 
also made no attempt to review the literature of either 
logic or psychology exhaustively even on the topics dis- 
cussed. Even where my conclusions have grown out 
of the discussions of others, I have not always indi- 
cated the fact. I had space to do no more than sum- 
marize my own results and could cite the related work 
of others in but few instances. 

I desire, however, to express my gratitude in gen- 
eral to the many writers from whom I have drawn in- 
spiration. Perhaps I owe most to Bradley and Bosan- 
quet, although I very much doubt if either would be 
willing to recognize me as a disciple. Of the more 
recent writers, Professors Dewey and Baldwin have 
been most helpful. I have received many suggestions 
and even more stimulus from my colleagues at the 
University of Michigan, and from my temporary col- 
leagues at Columbia during the preparation of the 
manuscript, for which I am glad to acknowledge my 
indebtedness. Particularly I desire to thank Pro- 
fessor Cattell, whose invitation to give these lectures 
and to spend a half-year at Columbia at once gave the 
incentive and the leisure for the preparation of the 
lectures. 

W. B. PlLLSBUBT. 



vni 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

' I. The Place op Reasoning in Psychology 1 

II. Belief . . 23 

III. Meaning and the Concept .... 60 

IV. Judgment 99 

V. Judgment and Language 137 

VI. Inference 172 

VII. Proof— The Syllogism 200 

VIII. The Nature of Inductive Proof . . 236 

IX. Degrees of Truth. Modality and 

Probability 255 

X. Conclusion 276 



THE PSYCHOLOGY 
OF REASONING 

CHAPTEE I 

THE PLACE OF SEASONING IN PSYCHOLOGY 

As is usual with terms that are used both 
popularly and scientifically, reasoning has a 
multitude of meanings and a very large num- 
ber of implications and relationships. In popu- 
lar use reasoning is often made to include all 
actions that are not the outcome of habit and 
instinct; sometimes it is restricted in its 
use to the highest mental accomplishments. In 
the former use, the animal reasons when it ap- 
plies some earlier acquired response in a new 
way; in the latter, man is said to reason when 
he is solving some abstruse problem in math- 
ematics or in the sciences, while he would be 
but remembering or using some lower capacity 
when he finds the solution for a puzzle. Where 
usage is so divergent, one might accept any 

1 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

meaning that is desired. The wider of the two 
in question seems the more satisfactory, and 
corresponds more closely with psychological 
usage. For our purposes reasoning shall be 
considered the application of any knowledge in 
a new way. Eeasoning may be particular, as 
when one avoids a difficulty in accomplishing 
some task, or it may be abstract in reaching 
some conclusion about the ultimate nature of 
the universe. Each must be included in any 
theory that pretends to discuss reasoning. 

If one turns from the more general relations 
to the place of reasoning in a technical psycho- 
logical discussion, one finds that it has, on the 
one hand, close relations to the memory and 
imagination processes and, on the other, to the 
active processes of habit and instinct. In rela- 
tion to action, reasoning is a muscular product 
and the ends are at once realized. In the form 
of reasoning that is closely related to memory 
and imagination, on the other hand, the results 
of reasoning are purely subjective. They may 
be tested later in action but, as they stand, 
they are purely mental processes, not actions. 
Each needs separate discussion, each is con- 
trolled by different laws, although what dis- 
tinguishes reasoning from the related processes 

% 



THE PLACE OF REASONING 

is about the same in each field. While the two 
uses of the word are different, they are applica- 
ble to the same general operation expressed in 
different ways. 

Seasoning, as a purely mental operation, is, 
like all of the cognitive processes, to be ex- 
plained by association. It is primarily a pro- 
cess of making use of the acquired experiences, 
and these are to be explained, so far as their 
connections and the order of their recall are 
concerned, in terms of association. Ordinarily, 
the same materials are used when one thinks 
abstractly and in connection with a new prob- 
lem, as when one recalls a familiar experience. 
Each is represented by a concrete picture, al- 
though each may be in terms of words or of 
some more general ideas. One may remember 
the face of a friend in clear images, as one may 
plan an instrument in simple pictures of the 
instrument, but one may remember in purely 
verbal terms merely that the friend was 
present on a certain occasion and also may 
plan the instrument in words, or in the 
most vague way may think that the device 
in question will work. Similarly, if one will 
but follow through a chain of reasoning, it 
will be observed that the elements are con- 

3 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

nected by the same laws of association that 
are operative in the simplest recall. Neither 
the materials nor medium of reasoning, or 
the laws of connection, then, are distinctive of 
reasoning as opposed to recall or imagination. 
What does seem to be characteristic is the 
way the material is applied and the resulting 
attitude toward the construction, the attitude of 
belief or of doubt. If the materials are com- 
bined in the old familiar way, they are felt to 
be familiar, are recognized. They are also 
ordinarily believed to have real existence. If 
new combinations of the old material are made, 
the result is unfamiliar. The result may be re- 
garded as untrue to reality, in which case, one 
employs imagination; or if it be regarded as a 
true combination even when new, one calls the 
result reasoning. These serve as the distin- 
guishing marks of the processes that come 
through association. What is recognized is 
said to be remembered ; what is not recognized 
is said to be the result of reasoning or imagina- 
tion. While reason is like imagination in that 
both are new combinations or applications of old 
material, it is like memory in that the results 
are believed to hold of reality. Seasoning 
gives a product that is believed but not recog- 

4 



THE PLACE OF SEASONING 

nized; memory a product that is at once be- 
lieved and recognized; while imagination's 
product is neither believed nor recognized. 

One other fact of reasoning often emphasized, 
is that reasoning deals with general statements 
and often with abstract qualities, not merely 
with the particular and the concrete. This is 
undoubtedly one of the most striking capacities 
of the human, if not of all mind, but it is not 
a quality that is altogether peculiar to reason- 
ing. One very frequently remembers in ab- 
stract terms ; one remembers general events as 
well as particulars. This, then, as was noticed 
above, is not peculiar to reasoning, although 
without it reasoning and thinking of all kinds 
would be far less effective than they are. On 
the purely mental side, truth and newness are 
the only distinguishing characteristics of rea- 
soning, and these only from the fact that it is in 
reasoning alone that they occur together. 

As a form of action, reasoning is to be distin- 
guished from habit and instinct. As opposed 
to both, it is characterized by the newness of the 
act or the newness of the application of the -act. 
Habit and instinct are found in the lowest forms 
of animals and from the earliest stage in the 
development of the child. Eeasoning makes its 

5 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

appearance only in the higher animals and rela- 
tively late in the development of the human 
being. Habit is dependent merely upon 
changes in the organism that are induced by 
any action which make that action repeat itself 
whenever similar occasions arise. It is to be 
related to changes in the connection of the ele- 
ments that unite nerve cells, originally not 
united. Instinct is an expression of changes in 
the organism as a result of selection; habit of 
changes in the individual as a result of some 
movement hit upon by chance and found to give 
desirable results. In reasoning the old act is 
used when some new occasion arises for which 
no habit has been developed. The movement is, 
in this case, identical in character with the move- 
ment that is applied in the habitual way. The 
only distinguishing characteristics are that the 
connections of the act are new, and that it is 
directed immediately to the end that it is to 
serve. It does not come as the result of chance 
trial, and it must be adequate to the end. Habit 
is seen in the act of a soldier who fires at the 
word of command, reason in the act of a general 
who sees in a given engagement a similarity to 
an historical battle and makes use of a disposi- 
tion similar to the one that won a famous vic- 

6 



THE PLACE OF REASONING 

tory. Eeasoning would be exhibited, too, when 
a soldier made use of bis firearm to provide a 
splint for a wounded companion in a way that 
be bad not been previously drilled to use it. 
Here a familiar stimulus or object elicits a new 
response. 

Tbese two applications of reasoning are at 
first sigbt ratber widely divergent. If closely 
analyzed, bowever, tbey are seen to be very 
much alike. Each is marked by the new appli- 
cation of an old experience ; each, too, results in 
an adequate solution of the problem presented, 
or in a solution believed to be adequate should 
occasion arise for its practical application. 
Each, too, is distinguished from other ideas or 
other actions only by these two features, or by 
a combination of these two features. Eandom 
ideas, like random actions, are new but since 
not true or not adequate at the moment are not 
said to be rational. On the other hand, recalled 
ideas and habits are usually adequate, but are 
not new, and hence are not classed as reason- 
ing. The only fundamental distinction between 
the two forms is that one is an idea, the other 
a movement or series of movements. Even this 
distinction ceases to be of importance when one 

considers that the ideas that are designated 

2 7 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

reasoning are usually developed with reference 
to their ultimate expression in action of some 
sort. The act is merely delayed. And in 
action one usually may detect in himself ideas 
that precede the act. Eeasoning in idea is but 
action postponed, reasoning in action is but an 
idea expressed. 

If reasoning is applied to approximately the 
same operations in thinking and action, it should 
be possible to describe the character of the 
rational process more in detail and more con- 
cretely. Eeasoning, like all mental operations, 
can be understood only in its setting. While, 
for simplicity of explanation, it is necessary to 
assume that consciousness may be thought of 
as made up of elements, it does not follow at 
all that the elements exist in the same way out- 
side of their connections, as in them. Because 
an animal can be understood only when consid- 
ered as made up of separate elements, it does 
not follow that the elements have the same func- 
tion apart from the whole that they have in it. 
Mental elements are even more closely de- 
pendent upon the whole of which they are the 
part for their real and true existence. When 
torn from their setting, they no longer bear 
sufficient resemblance to their character in the 

8 



THE PLACE OF SEASONING 

setting to be recognized as the same structure. 
Eeasoning in particular must be studied in its 
place in the whole of mind. As will be seen in 
the course of the discussion, many of the de- 
fects in the earlier treatments and in many of 
the current treatments of the reasoning opera- 
tions come from the attempt to understand 
them apart from the natural context. 

To understand any concrete bit of reasoning, 
one must consider four phases or parts of the 
process : (1) Every act of reasoning is closely 
related to the felt need or purpose of the indi- 
vidual at the moment. This is purely sub- 
jective in its origin and an expression of much 
in the earlier history of that individual and in 
his immediately preceding life. It is connected 
with the desires, and these go back to early 
training ; with life purpose, however originated ; 
and finally with instinct. The purpose cannot, 
in its turn, be understood apart from the larger 
whole of the life of the individual, although the 
momentary purpose is sufficient to enable one 
to understand the course of reasoning. (2) 
The outcome of reasoning is dependent very 
largely upon the tools that present themselves 
and upon the other external circumstances of 
the moment, more particularly upon the way the 

9 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

circumstances of the moment are appreciated 
and interpreted. The interpretation or appre- 
ciation of the situation is very closely connected 
with the purpose. When one is interested in 
a problem, one sees it in a certain situation. 
When the purpose changes, the interpretation 
differs. The purpose, then, is dependent for 
its accomplishment upon the material setting, 
but the setting is dependent for its interpreta- 
tion upon the purpose. (3) When a purpose 
and situation are given, some solution of the 
problem usually suggests itself. The solution 
will depend upon the connections that have been 
earlier developed. If the solution is in idea 
alone, the situation will recall old ideas that 
have been used in more or less similar situa- 
tions to solve similar problems. If the solution 
is a movement, the situation will call out accus- 
tomed movements that have been learned in 
other connections and will apply them to the 
new problem. In either case the outcome will 
be controlled in some degree by the purpose 
that is dominant. (4) Finally, each solution 
must be tested. The test will be the actual suc- 
cess of the movement if the solution is an act; 
it will be the belief, disbelief, or doubt of 
the suggested solution if the answer is in idea 

10 



THE PLACE OF SEASONING 

alone. These four stages or phases may be dis- 
tinguished in every bit of reasoning. Often the 
line of demarkation between two succeeding 
elements is difficult to determine. Sometimes 
one of the elements may lie in the background 
and not be at all obvious, but a little observa- 
tion will serve to bring it out. Thus the test 
and the solution may be part of the same proc- 
ess. One may be not at all impressed by the 
fact that the movement is adequate, one may 
not consciously raise the question of belief, but 
the adequateness and the belief are taken for 
granted. In many cases proper appreciation of 
the situation gives the solution so immediately 
that belief in its adequacy need not be expressed 
in words. This is the usual result where the 
situation and solution have been frequently con- 
nected. The controlling purpose often seems to 
be no part of the reasoning process, and one is 
in fact seldom aware of it. But failure to take 
the influence of the dominant purpose of the 
moment into consideration is responsible for 
many misconceptions of the process. Each of 
the four stages must be considered or the knowl- 
edge of the whole is certain to be defective. 

These four factors of reasoning have many 
psychological and many logical relations. In 

11 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

fact, they are practically identical with psycho- 
logical processes, very familiar under other 
names. What we have called the purpose is 
recognized by practically every writer and made 
to play a prominent part in the explanation of 
all of the spontaneous mental operations. It is 
represented in the systems of Herbart, Stout, 
and Wundt, by apperception. It appears in the 
writings of many as attention or as the con- 
trolling factor in attention, and receives the 
name of "attitude" or "cortical set" in the 
writings of several very recent workers. 
Whatever it may be called, it is the determining 
factor in practically all of the concrete mental 
operations. It gives form to the different per- 
cepts, gives direction to association, decides be- 
tween the different memories that are competing 
for recall and it rules action. Reasoning then 
is not alone in its subordination to the wider 
purpose of the moment. The character of each 
of these familiar operations changes as the pur- 
pose varies. In them too the purpose does not 
stand alone but is an outgrowth of very many 
elements in the experience and inheritance of 
the individual. 

The second part of the operation, the appre- 
ciation of the situation is approximately identi- 

12 



THE PLACE OF SEASONING 

cal with attention and perception. To be af- 
fected by the situation we must attend to it ; to 
make use of the materials offered we must inter- 
pret them, and interpretation is practically iden- 
tical with perception. As we shall have oc- 
casion to indicate later, it is more difficult to 
distinguish between appreciation and percep- 
tion than it is to discover points of similarity 
between them. The third part of the process 
in order of development, the overcoming of the 
appreciated difficulty or making any needed 
improvement in the appreciated situation, is 
in its character essentially one with association 
or, if the improvement be actual not thought, 
with habit. Like controlled association, or con- 
trolled response in any connection or in any 
operation, it is the outcome of earlier associa- 
tion with the appreciated situation checked and 
directed by the dominant purpose. While this 
is the really effective step in reasoning, little 
need be said about it since it differs from other 
forms of recall only in the adequateness of 
the result, which in turn is due to the more 
complete control. The fourth and final step in 
the completed operation, belief, is most char- 
acteristic of all. It alone is in some degree 
peculiar to the process under discussion. As 

13 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

has been repeatedly said, any new construction 
that is believed to be adequate is rational. How 
the construction has been attained is a matter 
of relative indifference. Historically the dis- 
cussions of thinking in all of its forms have 
centered about truth and the methods of estab- 
lishing or demonstrating truth. So far has this 
gone that the modes of obtaining truth have 
largely been lost sight of as compared with 
the methods of establishing its validity. In 
fact, proof has frequently been confused with 
obtaining a solution. While it may attach to 
many other psychological operations, belief has 
been most often discussed in connection with 
reasoning, and in that sense it is the one of 
our four stages peculiar to reasoning. 

If reasoning, has these many psychological 
analogues and relations, it must be remembered 
that it is not a topic for psychology alone, but 
that the entire science of logic is devoted pri- 
marily to its consideration. Our account of 
reasoning would be obviously one-sided did we 
neglect logic's discussions of the problem. 
That the attitude of logic is essentially differ- 
ent from that of psychology is evident from the 
different division that it makes of the reason- 
ing operations. The universal practice of the 

14 



THE PLACE OF REASONING 

logician is to divide reasoning into conception, 
judgment, and inference. There is by no means 
such complete agreement, however, as to what 
these different terms represent in the way of 
processes. In fact from the attitude that logic 
takes toward reasoning, the terms refer rather 
to the products of mental operations than to 
the operations themselves. Formal logic at 
least is mainly concerned with thinking as it is 
expressed in words. In consequence, the out- 
comes of the operations alone are considered, 
and that with little reference to the occasions 
or laws that give rise to them. The concept for 
formal logic is denned as a term that applies to 
or represents a class of individuals, or an ab- 
stract quality. The term itself is any word 
that represents an object. Judgment is the 
process of connecting the terms or, in the static 
form that is usually discussed, it is the combina- 
tion of two terms. Inference is the combina- 
tion of judgments. Three judgments in the 
syllogistic reasoning unite in the development 
of a new truth. 

Any attempt to answer the question, what 
psychological operations are behind these ele- 
ments recognized by formal logic, involves 
numerous difficulties. Perhaps the most im- 

15 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

portant is the disagreement among the logicians 
themselves as to what the operations are, or 
even as to the exact parts of the total problem 
to which the different words are to be applied. 
The formal logic definitions have been aban- 
doned or modified in many particulars by the 
more modern logicians, who are more concerned 
with the real operations that lie behind the 
words than the older men. If we correlate the 
words of the logician with the phases above, 
we find that the only term that exactly applies 
is the word judgment, which is the approximate 
equivalent of appreciating the difficulty. Even 
here, to obtain our correspondence, we must 
accept the definition of the modern logician that 
the judgment is the application of meaning to 
the given. Inference covers much the same 
operation as the solution of the problem but 
the formal logician is not so much concerned 
with the process as with the proof. He takes 
the solution for granted as it is expressed in 
words and contents himself with asking if the 
result is correct, or how it can be shown to be 
correct. The process is overshadowed by the 
proof in his use of the term inference. The 
traditional equivalent of inference, the syllo- 
gism, is wholly devoted to proof and does not 

16 



THE PLACE OF SEASONING 

at all correspond to the process of obtaining 
the solution. Inference, then, covers three of 
the processes that we have distinguished: the 
solution of the problem, belief, and the methods 
of inducing belief, proof. Two terms of the 
logician then correspond closely enough with the 
phases of the reasoning process as they present 
themselves to the psychologist to be used to 
designate them. One preliminary problem 
from each group must be discussed, these are : 
first, the nature of belief, or the criterion of 
truth which has been discussed now and again 
by the logician but which is certainly a psycho- 
logical problem from one of its aspects; and 
second, the problem of the concept that is now 
ordinarily combined with the problem of mean- 
ing. Discussion of the influence of the purpose 
and the wider relations of the elements of the 
thinking process must be incidental to the other 
phases of the subject. Our problems for dis- 
cussion are, then: (1) What is it that gives 
belief? (2) How is it possible for the concrete 
mental image or word to represent abstract 
qualities and for the one to be representative 
of the many? (3) What is the process of judg- 
ing or appreciating, ordinarily appreciating a 
difficulty? (4) What is the process of infer- 

17 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

ence, or of obviating a difficulty, or solving a 
problem? (5) In what ways may the truth 
of the conclusion be established, the part really 
emphasized by the traditional logic? In the dis- 
cussion of each we shall emphasize the psycho- 
logical position but shall also attempt to do 
justice to the results and methods of the logi- 
cian. 

The general difference in the standpoint of 
the logician and the psychologist will serve to 
throw light upon the discussion of the particular 
problem. The most important of these is prob- 
ably the relation of the thinking process to the 
concrete individual consciousness. The psy- 
chologist makes reasoning one operation among 
many; the logician, or at least several modern 
logicians, deny that thinking ever goes on in 
the mind that the psychologist investigates. 
Bradley and Bosanquet and more recently Hus- 
serl make the latter assertion with great em- 
phasis. The former two men accept Mill's de- 
scription of consciousness as accurate and when 
they find no possibility of a satisfactory expla- 
nation of reasoning in Mill's system, insist that 
it must go on in some higher realm, a world 
of meaning that is apart from the individual 
consciousness, although perhaps connected 

18 



THE PLACE OF REASONING 

with it in some unassignable way. Husserl, 
similarly, argues that the results of reasoning 
must be true absolutely and universally while 
mental processes are always relative to the ex- 
perience of that individual, and need be true 
for that individual alone. To the first argu- 
ment, the psychologist must reply that it is 
against all direct evidence to assume that 
thinking does not go on in consciousness. The 
results are always expressed through the indi- 
vidual and bear marks of the individual 
peculiarities of the thinker. If the psy- 
chology of Mill is inadequate, the obvious 
course is to develop an adequate psychology. 
It does not follow that one must look to a supra- 
mental realm for the seat of thought. As a 
matter of fact the universal mind or world of 
meanings of Bradley is much more like the real 
mind as the psychologist describes it to-day 
than is the mind pictured by Mill and his con- 
temporaries. 

The argument of Husserl brings out most 
clearly the fundamental difference between the 
methods and attitudes of the logician and the 
psychologist. The aim of the logician is to 
discover a theory that shall give knowledge the 
character that he believes it to have. The aim 

19 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

of the psychologist is to examine consciousness 
as he finds it with no preconceived idea of what 
the outcome may be. He follows out the ac- 
cepted methods and accepts without question 
the results that they give. There is more than 
a suggestion in the one attitude of working for 
an answer, as the schoolboy solves a problem. 
The other too often forgets to ask whether the 
outcome of his method is adequate to the de- 
mands made upon it. Both methods have dis- 
advantages. Working for an answer is not 
likely to foster impartial investigation, but too 
great indifference to the outcome in matters as 
complicated as the working of mind makes it 
possible for an entirely inadequate solution to 
be palmed off as adequate. It is as if, in cal- 
culating the balance in the bank, one should find 
a much smaller sum than expected. Three 
courses would be open. One might assert that 
the result was impossible and that in conse- 
quence the laws of addition and subtraction 
ordinarily used must be wrong; one might ac- 
cept the outcome as infallible because it is the 
expression of methods known beyond question 
to be true ; or one might accept the correctness 
of the methods, but believe that some mistake 
had been made in the application and look back 

20 



THE PLACE OF REASONING 

over the results to see if each part of the opera- 
tion had been properly carried out. The first 
course is a caricature of the logician's conclu- 
sion with reference to reasoning; the second 
exaggerates the method of the older psychol- 
ogy, or at least of some older psychologists; 
the third is the every day common sense prac- 
tice. Obviously the intermediate course is the 
only one that gives promise of success. 

With reference to these more fundamental 
problems, the present discussion will assume 
that thinking goes on in the human conscious- 
ness, and that it is possible to determine the 
laws and conditions of thinking from an exam- 
ination of mind. The investigation shall make 
use of the generally accepted methods, but an 
eye will be kept constantly on the results of the 
method to make sure that the conclusions agree 
roughly with the accepted character of the 
thinking operations. If the results are mani- 
festly inadequate to the actual attainments of 
reasoning, the methods will be re-examined to 
determine the source of error, if any exist. It 
will also be kept in mind that reasoning may 
not really be of the character popularly 
assigned to it. Its accomplishments must be 
examined from time to time to make sure that 

21 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

they are actual, not pretended. By these meth- 
ods and on these presuppositions we may pro- 
ceed to our investigation of belief, of the nature 
of meaning and the concept, of judgment and 
inference, and of proof. 



CHAPTER II 

BELIEF 

The problem of belief is, in one of its aspects, 
the problem of truth. As such, discussions of 
belief have been numerous in the history of 
philosophy. The earliest form of the doctrine 
is closely intermingled with the discussions of 
the ultimate nature of things. One solution of 
this character we find in Plato's ideas whose 
existence gave certainty and stability to the 
more transient mental images. Later the dis- 
cussions of the principle of sufficient reason in 
Leibniz, in Pascal and other logical writers ap- 
proach the problem from a different point of 
view. Most of the tests were of a logical char- 
acter alone. Pascal, to be sure, asserted that 
the clearness and definiteness of an idea gave 
it the warrant of truth. But it is only with the 
modern writers that we find the distinctly psy- 
chological problem put as we would put it, 
viz. : what is it that distinguishes the true from 
the false as psychological states? The first of 
3 23 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

the modern writers to recognize the problem 
was Hume, who made belief depend upon the 
clearness or distinctness of ideas. The famous 
classification of mental states into impressions 
and ideas gives one answer to the question. 
Impressions must be accepted because they are 
intense, ideas may be denied if indistinct. Be- 
lief in ideas is also made to depend upon the 
strength of the associations that bring them into 
consciousness. For us the essential aspect of 
the theory is that it is the first to give an em- 
pirical basis for belief, to discover a criterion 
that lies in consciousness itself and is imme- 
diately open to investigation. Whatever credit 
may be due to Hume as the pioneer in the prob- 
lem, as the first who recognized the possibility 
of answering the question in a scientific way, 
we must reject his explanation as at best but 
partial and incomplete. While in general vivid 
experiences are accepted and the faint and in- 
definite are doubted or rejected, there are not- 
able exceptions. Many intense experiences are 
not believed to be real and a still larger number 
of faint impressions are at once given credence. 
Many detected hallucinations and illusions are 
of considerable intensity, while very many faint 
impressions are accepted at their first appear- 

24 



BELIEF 

ance without question. Certain of our beliefs 
then may depend in part upon the intensity and 
vividness of mental states, but this quality is 
not to be regarded as important. The excep- 
tions are fully as important as the rule. 

Bain formulated the next of the more signifi- 
cant types of theory. This has two independ- 
ent criteria or explanations of belief. The first 
is his suggestion that to ask why we believe 
is to put the less important and less easily 
answered of two possible questions. For belief 
is the natural process, psychologically — is nega- 
tive ; while doubt is positive. We believe every- 
thing that comes to consciousness unopposed. 
What requires explanation is doubt. Belief is 
the original process in the mind of the child. 
He does not doubt until he has accumulated a 
considerable amount of knowledge, until he has 
attained a relatively high stage in the develop- 
ment of intelligence. The other phase of this 
theory, that action is the test of belief, has had 
even a larger place historically. We believe 
anything that we are prepared to act upon. 
Belief comes with action however action may 
have been initiated. The first mentioned char- 
acteristic of belief may be derived from this, 
for from the beginning there is a natural ten- 

25 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

dency to respond to every sense impression. 
The main criticism to be passed upon Bain's 
theory affects its importance not its truth, and 
this applies only to the one criterion, action. 
There can be no doubt that when we act, we 
have ordinarily believed, but it may be a ques- 
tion whether we do not act because we believe, 
rather than believe because we act. In other 
words, one questions whether it is not much 
more important to explain action in terms of 
belief than to explain belief in terms of action. 
What really concerns one is to determine the 
conditions of belief and of action, not to learn 
that one believes when one is ready to act. 
Action comes as the outgrowth of belief, or at 
most as another expression of the same set of 
conditions. What we are really anxious to de- 
termine is whether the idea is justifiable and 
likely to prove profitable before action has 
tested it. It might be urged too that belief 
often seems to grow through action, but in these 
cases it is probable that the resulting belief 
comes from the success of the action, rather 
than through the mere action itself. Some acts 
to be sure give rise to belief whose results are 
indifferent to belief; frequent repetition gives 
rise to a habit and the habitual movement dis- 

26 



BELIEF 

tracts from consideration of circumstances that 
might arouse suspicion. This is not real belief. 
More usually however action serves like the 
experiment in science to confirm or refute. Not 
the act but the new evidence it furnishes is the 
source of belief. Of the two effects of action 
in furthering belief, one ordinarily gives mere 
pretense before the world, not real belief; the 
other derives its value not from the act itself, 
but from its results, an intellectual contribution 
that frequently destroys belief. We may read- 
ily grant the statement that action is an excel- 
lent test, — if we believe, we are willing to act 
in accordance with our belief, but action does 
not give rise to belief in any great number of 
cases. The second thesis that Bain upholds is 
at once important and true. Credulity is nat- 
ural, doubt comes only at a relatively late stage 
in intellectual development. It follows that 
what needs discussion and interpretation is not 
belief but doubt, or disbelief, and we shall take 
advantage of the suggestion when we come to 
the positive, more constructive part of our dis- 
cussion. 

The third man to emphasize the importance 
of belief was Brentano, although he contributes 
little to the detailed analysis of the state as 

27 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SEASONING 

such. Brentano makes belief identical with 
judgment. Unlike Bain, he insists that mental 
states are at first indifferent to truth and must 
be judged before they become either true or 
false. Brentano positively declines to state in 
what the process of belief consists, or to give 
it any conditions. He argues strenuously that 
it is an unanalyzable process. "We believe and 
that is all that can be said. This can mean 
only that the process has not yet been analyzed 
or that Brentano does not care to undertake 
the task. He does in practice carry out his 
definition and makes judgment, or belief, one 
of the elements of mind on the same level as 
sensation or action. The truth or falsity of 
Brentano 's theory can be established only by 
successful completion or admitted failure of 
the analysis. While then in the recent history 
of the reasoning theories Brentano 's theory of 
judgment bulks large, his theory of belief de- 
serves mention only from the importance he 
attaches to it in the total system. 

One of the last great advances made is by 
James. Belief in the materials of perception 
is for James as for Hume dependent upon the 
intensity or vividness of the impression itself, 
upon the actions and emotions aroused and 

28 



BELIEF 

upon the degree to which it fits in with the hab- 
its of observation and action. Self -consistency 
is the most important condition of belief in 
matters of theory. Less important are the 
emotional and experiential aspects. The 
struggle between the different theories to sat- 
isfy our aesthetic and emotional needs eventu- 
ates in a compromise that is given belief. In 
one passage belief is defined as "the emotional 
reaction of the entire man upon an object." 
This definition seems, however, to be subordi- 
nated to the others. "We also find in James 
strong insistence upon the statement that one 
can by habitual endeavor make one's self be- 
lieve what could not be believed at first. The 
most characteristic of all these conditions is the 
assertion that belief comes from the consistency 
of the object or statement with itself. The en- 
largement of this idea into the several systems 
of belief that are all consistent, each within 
itself, but inconsistent with each other, is sig- 
nificant of a tendency to demand for belief a 
wider consistency of the thing believed with 
other experiences. 

If we look back over the theories of belief, we 
see that each man has accepted many elements 
from his predecessors but has subordinated 

29 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

them to the criteria that he was himself con- 
cerned to establish. If we combine all, we have 
the general statement that anything is believed 
that is intense or vivid, we believe that npon 
which we are willing to act and which harmo- 
nizes with our old habits and our emotional na- 
ture, provided always that it does not manifest 
inconsistencies within itself. So much we may 
accept as present in some degree in most states 
of belief. Any one except self -consistency may 
be absent and belief be present. We may be- 
lieve in things that are not sensuously clear or 
vivid, we may even believe statements that are 
opposed to our habitual emotions and habits, 
if they are presented under new and striking 
conditions. We probably do not believe any- 
thing that we are not willing to act upon, but 
it is a question whether that tells us more of 
the conditions of belief or of the conditions of 
action. The objection to the theories men- 
tioned is not that each does not contain some 
truth but that, taken together, they do not cover 
all cases of belief. In some instances we have 
belief where no one of them is present, and in 
others all may be present and belief still be 
absent. We have perceptions that are vivid 
and in harmony with our emotional mood and 

30 



BELIEF 

past habits of response, that we do not believe, 
and we hear stories that are all of these things 
and self -consistent as well that we still do not 
believe, while more rarely we believe assertions 
or accept experiences that possess none of these 
qualities. 

We may begin our own constructive task with 
at least one fact gained from the history of the 
theories. This is Bain's assertion that belief is 
a negative and natural process that attaches to 
all mental states unless there is some good 
reason to the contrary; that one must seek 
reasons for doubt, not for belief. Anything 
that enters mind is normally at once accepted 
as true. Doubt or disbelief on the contrary 
must have some positive ground, and conse- 
quently arises only with sophistication and on 
the basis of positive evidence. In opposition to 
Brentano it seems that there is no moment 
when any perception or idea stands in con- 
sciousness as a mere given that is neither 
believed nor disbelieved. Introspection seems 
to show no moment of suspended judgment. 
An object or statement is accepted or rejected 
at once. On its entrance it stands before con- 
sciousness a thing believed, a thing denied be- 
lief or a thing in doubt. These attitudes may 

31 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

succeed one another ; a statement may be first 
believed, then disbelieved or doubted ; but never, 
so far as my experience goes, does it stand 
without evaluation as to its truth. Even when 
there is intentional suspension of judgment as 
a consequence of a warning that the question is 
difficult or that there is danger of being mis- 
led, what is suspended is not so much belief as 
the usual consequences of belief, action or the 
final stamp of approval. Brentano's assertion 
that in its initial stages the impression is indif- 
ferent to belief seems not to have been the result 
of actual experience or observation so much as 
a construction based on considerations of the- 
ory. If one were to suppose with Brentano 
that belief were an independent mental process 
without relation to anything else, it might be 
necessary or convenient to have two operations 
rather than one involved in the acceptance of 
an impression by consciousness. Brentano 
seems to have emphasized the needs of his psy- 
chological system rather than the facts of ex- 
perience. 

Accepting belief as a natural and immediate 
state of consciousness, we must begin our analy- 
sis of the state and its conditions not with belief, 
but with its opposite, disbelief, or the more def- 

32 



BELIEF 



inite quality, doubt. For disbelief seems usu- 
ally to be belief in something else, doubt is 
unique. We may begin our study by observing 
an instance of doubt on the perceptual level 
where the phenomenon appears in its simplest, 
most analyzable form. One may take an old 
example in the illusion of reversible perspec- 
tive. In the figure one sees at first glance a 



^Z 




2^7 




zz^ 




ZI7 




/ ;/ 



flight of steps clearly and unambiguously 
drawn. A second glance shows that the figure 
is part of a broken wall under which one might 
take shelter from rain. The interpretation 
changes with the attitude. When one thinks 
of walking up and down on the steps, the steps 
reappear. As the attitude changes in this way 
from moment to moment, the interpretation 
varies. If one takes the experiment seriously, 
he is puzzled as long as the fluctuation contin- 
ues. This is the typical attitude of doubt. The 

33 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

alternation is usually unpleasant when the 
problem is real. Complicated strain sensations 
are likely to arise and these add a new element 
to the unpleasantness. Qualitatively, then, 
doubt is unpleasant, and is marked by somewhat 
complicated strains. On the psychological side, 
the conditions of the fluctuations are the ante- 
cedent ideas or mental attitudes. When one is 
in a " flight of steps" attitude, one sees steps; 
when in a " broken wall" attitude, the over- 
hanging wall dominates. The attitude is in- 
duced and changed by the words, but it might 
have changed spontaneously had the words 
been lacking. The fluctuation ceases and be- 
lief replaces doubt when the person looking at 
the picture learns that the drawing is perfectly 
plane; that the alternation is not due to per- 
spective, and that the fluctuations arise from 
the ideas brought to bear on the interpretation 
of the presentation rather than in the presen- 
tation itself. 

This simple illustration is typical of all cases 
of doubt in perception. It is very frequently 
possible to look at an object from more than 
one point of view. How it will be seen depends 
upon these points of view and the resulting in- 
terpretation will shift with the shifting atti- 

34 



BELIEF 

tude. As long as two points of view are pos- 
sible or are actually operative in changing the 
interpretation, there will be doubt; when one 
or the other, or some third that transcends 
them, is definitely established, doubt vanishes 
and belief ensues. Very frequently alternation 
of interpretation is lacking; one context alone 
is dominant, and belief is present from the start. 
There is not even definite recognition of the 
possibility of doubt, so no conscious belief. The 
first interpretation persists and is taken as 
true without being consciously regarded as true 
or false. 

It will be noted in a case of this kind that 
there is no third distinct process of disbelief. 
One takes the figure as either concave or con- 
vex, and believes either one or the other. It 
is possible, however, to express belief in one in- 
terpretation directly or indirectly as disbelief 
of the alternative interpretation. Whether one 
uses one form or the other, depends very largely 
upon the verbal context. If some one suggests 
that the figure above is concave, while one is 
seeing it convex, one is more likely to deny the 
concavity than to assert the convexity. The 
rejection of some other person's definite asser- 
tion is almost the only occasion for using the 

35 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

negative form. In this case the negative is 
altogether a matter of language, not of psychol- 
ogy. The only case in which disbelief is not 
really belief in something else is when no inter- 
pretation is satisfactory. Each suggestion is 
rejected. As a result, the negative form is 
used without any definite positive disposition 
of the object in consciousness. Then doubt un- 
resolved gives rise to the negative. In any case 
the negative does not present a new psycholog- 
ical category. The only psychological proc- 
esses are doubt and belief. We might note, 
too, that what is asserted of the logical negative 
by Bradley holds in the psychology of disbe- 
lief. Bradley, it will be recalled, asserts that 
one never gives a proposition the negative form 
except upon positive grounds; that one never 
makes a negative statement except upon some 
definite occasion. The same holds of disbelief. 
One would never assert disbelief in the existence 
of an object or of an interpretation of an object 
unless the interpretation had been asserted and 
rejected, or unless the interpretation had sug- 
gested itself to the speaker and it had later been 
seen that some other was more* stable. In the 
figure just discussed one would not say 
that it was not concave unless some one had 

36 



BELIEF 

suggested the possibility of seeing it as con- 
cave and one had not succeeded in the attempt. 
One does not assert disbelief at random. There 
are thousands of statements that might be de- 
nied of the figure, that it was red, virtuous, of 
curved lines, etc., but none of these are denied 
because they do not suggest themselves to any- 
one as possible. 

Doubt concerning a statement of more gen- 
eral fact or theory has very much the same 
explanation. Doubt arises whenever a state- 
ment can be brought into two or more contexts 
-and changes as the context changes. Doubt, 
then, is an expression of the fluctuation that 
results from viewing a statement from differ- 
ent points of view. It carries with it, also, the 
implication that it is impossible to view it in 
one way for any length of time. Thus, the 
relation between body and mind is believed to 
be causal as long as one considers the similari- 
ties between the relation that subsists here and 
the relation of cause and effect as it is recog- 
nized in physics or in the practical world by 
the practical man. On the other hand, for 
some, at least, the idea refuses to fit into gen- 
eral experience when one emphasizes the dif- 
ferences between the physical and mental 

37 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

aspects, and attempts to apply the generally 
accepted principle of the conservation of en- 
ergy. As long as the two ways of regarding 
the problem alternate, there will be doubt. 
Doubt ceases and we have belief whenever one 
way of regarding the subject vanishes and the 
other remains in unchallenged supremacy on 
the mental field. As soon, for example, as con- 
sciousness is accepted as a form of energy, the 
conflict with the doctrine of conservation dis- 
appears and the psychologist becomes an inter- 
actionist. If the difference between conscious 
states and energy is emphasized, and the dif- 
ferences between the relation of the mental and 
the physical and the causal relation in the 
purely physical realm increase in prominence, 
the man refuses belief in interaction, and either 
remains in doubt or becomes a parallelist, which 
is probably essentially the same outcome. 

Again, one may believe in socialism if one 
considers the evident disparity between the 
rewards of different individuals who may be 
regarded as of the same ability or as of the 
same degree of desert. One is firmly opposed 
to socialism when men are regarded as essen- 
tially very different in ability, and ability and 
desert are identified, or it is assumed that men 

38 



BELIEF 

differ in their deserts as completely as they do 
in ability. Just so long as the two sets of 
experiences fluctuate before the mind, one will 
be in doubt as to which of the abstract prin- 
ciples is the more desirable. When one per- 
sists, it is by that very fact believed. On a 
subject that depends upon knowledge, belief 
cannot be permanent. As long as there is no 
scientific knowledge about the extent of indi- 
vidual variation in ability, or general agree- 
ment about the relation between ability and 
desert, every man will have his socialistic mo- 
ments and his individualistic moments, accord- 
ing as life has presented one feature or another 
to him in his immediate past. And individuals 
will be predominantly individualistic or social- 
istic as life as a whole has presented the advan- 
tages or the disadvantages of the present indi- 
vidualistic society. This presentation may 
have been in matters of practice or it may have 
been in matters of theory. In any case, we 
have belief in one theory or the other just so 
long as one set of experiences predominates in 
consciousness; doubt enters whenever there is 
rivalry between two sets of experience or alter- 
nating dominance of one and the other. Any 
similar instance of doubt or belief seems to 
4 39 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

reduce to the same factors. Here again we may 
say that disbelief is no third state. When be- 
lief is lost in one statement, belief in something 
else or doubt ensues. 

If we turn from the particular to the general, 
belief may be said to arise when any statement 
or interpretation harmonizes with experience 
as a whole, with the knowledge of the indi- 
vidual. We must, that is, go beyond the self- 
consistency of the statement or object to its 
consistency with the wider whole. There is 
nothing particularly indefinite or mysterious 
about this statement if one will but accept the 
conclusion of modern psychology that no expe- 
rience ever stands alone, but that even the ap- 
parently most simple mental operation really 
expresses large parts of earlier experience. In 
the simple perception, for example, we have the 
action of a vast number of facts acquired days 
and years before. No apparently discrete ele- 
ment is really discrete, but is the focusing point 
of consciousness as a whole. Every impression 
that enters consciousness does so by the positive 
or permissive action of forces derived from 
much of past experience. It follows then that 
to assert that belief depends upon very much 
of our earlier experience, in fact upon all that 

40 



BELIEF 

is active at the moment, does not require any 
new complication of the mechanism of mind. 
All that is necessary is to assume that the same 
factors that control attention or that direct the 
course of associations or constitute the attitude 
toward the interpretation of the entering im- 
pression in perception, are also the factors that 
pass upon the truth or the falsity of the result- 
ing object or assertion. Since experiential fac- 
tors are present and in active control there is no 
reason why they should not also be called upon 
to determine whether the product of their action 
is to be accepted or rejected. The operation 
of passing upon the product of a mental opera- 
tion is part of the process of producing it. 
One usually takes place at the same time as the 
other and is always a result of the same kind 
of force. It is true, the product may linger in 
memory for a moment, to be tested after it has 
been formed. During this period forces or fac- 
tors that were not operative before may enter 
to take part in the testing process and, if the 
new product fails to square with them as well 
as with those earlier effective, it will be re- 
jected. It is difficult to say what limits of age 
may be put upon the experiences that play a 
part in the operation of testing. Certain it is 

41 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

that many very remote elements may have their 
part in it. Eemnants of knowledge or of habit 
acquired in early childhood may at times have 
their effect upon belief, and it is difficult to 
draw a definite line in time and to say that all 
earlier experiences were without influence, all 
later ones were effective. 

Not all experience is organized into perfectly 
consistent systems. As a result we find that not 
all of experience, or even all that is essential, 
need be active at any one moment in the test- 
ing. In consequence, as different systems come 
into prominence successively, the attitude to- 
ward the construct will vary and with this vari- 
ation the interpretation fluctuates and the con- 
sequent doubt supervenes. This gives the 
change in mental attitude. Doubt is due to the 
alternating dominance of systems of experience 
that have not been altogether coordinated one 
with another. In this as in many other connec- 
tions it is seen that this attitude or purpose 
varies from moment to moment. When two 
more or less opposed systems succeed one an- 
other closely, the whole train of alternating 
interpretations ensues and the unsteadiness re- 
sults in alternating beliefs. These characterize 
the doubt consciousness. In some matters and 

42 



BELIEF 

at some moments one context and one alone is 
present. That constitutes or characterizes the 
momentarily settled conviction. In other mat- 
ters several systems or contexts conflict and no 
single organization can be made to include them 
all. Conviction is lacking or unsettled and, 
unless settled, some shadowing of the disturb- 
ance gives rise to the general experience of 
doubt. 

This dependence of belief upon earlier expe- 
riences and upon the reaction of earlier acquired 
knowledge upon the momentary product is evi- 
denced by a consideration, in the individual or 
in the race, of the change in beliefs with growth 
in knowledge. Some evidence can also be ob- 
tained for it from a study of the conditions of 
partial and temporary beliefs and of other 
somewhat pathological or unusual forms. The 
slightest observation shows that growth in 
knowledge is invariably accompanied by corre- 
sponding change in belief. The man of the 
early historic periods accepted any statement 
not in direct conflict with his experience. He 
peopled the universe with fairies and super-hu- 
man beings, with witches and weir-wolves; he 
put implicit confidence in absurd cures for dis- 
ease and in spells and incantations. It is only 

43 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

as man has grown in knowledge, and experi- 
ences have become sufficiently numerous and 
may be treated with sufficient discrimination to 
make evident the conflict of the new with the 
old, that doubt is at all possible. Similarly if 
we trace the development of accepted theory in 
any branch of science we find that the theories 
of any period harmonize with the observation 
and accumulated knowledge of the period. 
These theories are changed only as new facts 
and observations appear. So the explanation 
of perception and all action at a distance by 
corpuscular emanations was held to as long as 
there were no facts in direct opposition. As 
facts accumulated that would not fit into the 
theoretical scheme, people began to doubt it. 
It was abandoned in one field after another as 
the facts that would not fit became numerous 
enough to overwhelm it, and a new coordination 
was hit upon that would be less in conflict with 
the observations. It is interesting to note that 
the senses that have been most useful or could 
be most easily investigated were the first to 
accept the explanation in terms of wave motion. 
In the individual, too, we find, as experiences 
accumulate, the same increase in the severity 
of the tests that are applied. Children accept 

44 



BELIEF 

with relatively little question anything that their 
senses give them, or that anyone tells them. 
The phrase childlike credulity is an accurate 
indication of the facts. As they grow older 
or as knowledge accumulates they become more 
and more difficult to satisfy. Their credulity 
disappears with increasing age and intelligence. 
Fewer and fewer general statements will be be- 
lieved because fewer are in harmony with their 
knowledge. Their beliefs become at once more 
restricted and more trustworthy when tested by 
the generally accepted standards. The indi- 
vidual of restricted experience shares with the 
child ready belief and restricted doubt. Illus- 
trations of both of these statements will un- 
doubtedly be suggested to all without further 
illustration. Both lines of evolution tend to 
confirm our general thesis that belief is an im- 
mediate and complete expression of the earlier 
acquired knowledge of the individual so far as 
he has it ready to pass upon the new experiences 
and statements which present themselves. 

The evidence in the same direction from the 
cases of partial or artificial belief is no less 
striking. Perhaps the most complete instance 
in the normal life of impaired critical capacity 
toward a mental construction is to be found in 

45 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

the dream state. It is common experience that 
while dreaming we believe the dream to be real, 
no matter how bizarre or unnatural the con- 
struction that results. However when we recall 
the dream on waking there is no longer any 
belief that it could possibly be true. The whole 
elaborate structure falls like a house of cards. 
The explanation fits very easily into our theory. 
For whatever theory of sleep one may choose, 
one is bound to assume that during the dream 
state part of the brain is awake while the 
greater part is still asleep. As a result the 
control of association in the dream is the expres- 
sion of but a small portion of the cortex, of 
only a small portion of the accumulated ex- 
perience. The construction that harmonizes 
with the partial experience that has controlled 
its development, is entirely out of harmony with 
the wider experience that passes upon it when 
it is recalled. When viewed in the dim twilight 
of consciousness it is believed, but when exposed 
to the full daylight of complete consciousness, 
it becomes at once "the stuff of which dreams 
are made." The adequacy of belief is a func- 
tion of the completeness of the experience that 
passes upon it. The same phenomenon can be 
illustrated even more completely perhaps in the 

46 



BELIEF 

misplaced beliefs of the insane. Whenever the 
association tracts are impaired and the corre- 
sponding experiences thereby blotted out of the 
nervous system, belief is impaired in much the 
same degree as knowledge. That delusions per- 
sist and are accepted as real is a defect pri- 
marily of belief. There is no reasonably fertile 
mind in which untrue combinations of experi- 
ence do not make their appearance from time 
to time, but in the sane individual they are 
refused belief and so do not persist for any 
length of time. In the paranoiac the critical 
powers are reduced and the delusions persist 
and are permitted to lead to action. 

Cases in which hasty belief is revised at leis- 
ure are also illustrations of the same general 
principle. The ill-considered acts arise from 
acceptance of a course of action, or from assent 
to a proposition while dominated by partial 
knowledge. The belief given is in the light 
of less than the sum-total of the individual's 
knowledge of the matter in question, certainly 
in the light of less than the total amount of 
knowledge available to him at the time. The 
later regret, if it comes as often it does, before 
the decision has been expressed in action and 
new experience thereby accumulated, is in terms 

47 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

of the wider knowledge that is then brought 
to bear upon the subject. When the unused 
knowledge is brought to bear, the old belief is 
found to be out of harmony with important ele- 
ments of experience and immediate rejection 
follows. If the rejection is not so complete but 
there is wavering between two groups of ex- 
perience, belief is replaced by doubt. In all 
of these cases there is appeal from a partial 
experience to a complete experience, and the 
decision of the full bench stands. 

But these cases of absolute belief followed by 
just as complete disbelief are not the only cases 
of belief that throw light upon our problem. 
Many instances of partial belief persist over 
long intervals of time and these are recognized, 
too, as partial beliefs during the entire period 
of their persistence. Most artistic and assthetic 
beliefs come under this head. When one reads 
a novel there is belief of a kind, but not com- 
plete belief. One believes in the work as a 
study of character under the conditions that are 
assumed, and of the characters as they are 
assumed to exist. In a word, one puts one's 
self artificially in the mood of the author and 
believes that were the conditions as he assumed 
them to be when he wrote, the outcome would 

48 



BELIEF 

be as he asserts it to be. If he departs from 
his tacit assumptions we at once say that his art 
is false. As long as his development harmo- 
nizes with his presuppositions we are content to 
believe; his art is true. Were one at any mo- 
ment to look at the statements as one would 
historic fact, it would appear that one did not 
believe and could not believe. One consciously 
reads with an artificially limited experience, 
and as long as the experience that tests is lim- 
ited in this way, one believes in part, but is 
aware that the belief is in part. It is prob- 
able that the limitation of the testing experi- 
ence arises automatically at the suggestion of 
the peculiar style of the novelist. This is not 
restricted to the "once upon a time" of the 
story book, but the whole tenor of the construc- 
tion and even the outside appearance of the 
book carries with it an incentive to look at the 
story from the attitude of partial belief. This 
suggestion serves unconsciously to limit the ex- 
perience of the reader in the same way that the 
experience of the writer was limited while writ- 
ing. Here as in the dream state so long as the 
experience that tests is the same as the experi- 
ence that produces, there is belief. Whenever 
the experience is widened, as it is when one 

49 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

asks the question, "Is this really true?" belief 
departs. 

This testing of the presentation by a partial 
experience, a partial knowledge, is character- 
istic of the artistic consciousness wherever we 
find it. In music, in painting, in sculpture, as 
in the novel and on the stage, what is character- 
istic of the attitude of the artist during the 
development and of the appreciator in his en- 
joyment of the works of art, is the limitation of 
the extent of the guiding and testing experience. 
With him one is willing and able for the mo- 
ment to emphasize one phase of one's experi- 
ence and through that, one phase of life, while 
everything else is for the moment excluded. 
Enjoyment comes from the fact that one can 
for a time banish all conflicting considerations 
and look with an eye single to that phase or 
aspect of life. The fact that the figure is of 
marble, not flesh, that the painting is flat, that 
the scenery on the stage is canvas, is not per- 
mitted to interfere with the truth that is de- 
picted. If one fails to perceive the picture's 
meaning, persists in looking in the light of a 
complete experience or under any other set of 
experiences than that intended by the artist, 
there is no truth and so no pleasure. In this 

50 



BELIEF 

respect one must agree with Schiller and his 
numerous disciples that art is like play. In 
play, too, we are content to put aside many of 
the realities of life and to make believe for the 
moment that they do not exist. And the im- 
portance of play is due to the fact that all that 
makes for disbelief can be momentarily ex- 
cluded from our consciousness, that we may 
judge the actions of ourselves and others le- 
niently and partially. The child with smaller 
amounts of experience, and with fewer of the 
stern habits of life and business has consider- 
ably less difficulty in reducing to the minimum 
the knowledge by which he tests events and 
consequently has less difficulty in playing and 
more enjoyment from the simpler plays. All 
that distinguishes these beliefs of the artistic 
consciousness from the beliefs of the dream 
state, or from the beliefs of the paranoiac in his 
delusions is that they are consciously partial, 
and that they may be dissolved at will whenever 
the necessities of daily life demand. All alike 
illustrate the dependence of belief upon the ac- 
cumulated experience, particularly upon the 
accumulated experiences that chance for the 
moment to be dominant. 
We might class among these temporary and 
51 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

partial beliefs the belief under definitely formu- 
lated suppositions, that are not in themselves 
known to exist. One is constantly saying, 
granted that the new president is a believer 
in civil service, we shall have a better adminis- 
tration, or at least the appointment of better 
qualified men to the offices. Of course no 
assumption is made as to the truth, but we are 
recognizing a definite possible limitation of our 
experience and permitting our mind to run on 
under its control. This is a frequent and im- 
portant practical attitude. That it is allied to 
the partial belief of the artistic and the play 
consciousness is apparent. We need but to 
mention it in passing in this connection because 
it must be given extended discussion in connec- 
tion with judgment and inference. It is at the 
basis of the hypothetical propositions that we 
shall have occasion to discuss later. 

All departures from belief and modified 
forms of belief, as well as belief itself, seem 
to justify the original assertion that belief is 
one of the necessary results of the cooperation 
of older experiences with new in the formation 
of any mental process. As all experiences con- 
tribute in some small degree to the control of 
mental operations and to an amplification of 

52 



BELIEF 

the simple datum of sense or to the hardly less 
simple resultant from association, so all experi- 
ences pass upon the accuracy of each perception 
and of each statement made and heard by the 
speaker or his auditor. If this be the correct 
analysis of belief, it follows that beliefs grow, 
that they can not be made or even controlled. 
Belief can change only with change in knowl- 
edge. One can no more change one's belief 
arbitrarily than one can change one's height 
or one's health. Given one stage in the devel- 
opment of knowledge, one kind of belief is just 
as certain to result as an unsupported ball is 
certain to fall to the ground. True the same 
man does not believe the same thing at all times, 
but it is also true that the same set of experi- 
ences is not active at all times in any one man. 
One can change the belief of any individual 
either by giving him new and different experi- 
ences, or by so presenting a statement that it 
shall arouse a different set of experiences to 
pass upon the statement. Both methods are ap- 
plied in practical argumentation. The effect- 
iveness of a plea depends upon the success with 
which new groups of experiences can be roused 
to give the attitude that is desired. When the 
attitude is properly aroused belief follows as 

53 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

a matter of course. It is asserted by some re- 
ligious cults that certain forms of belief can and 
should be aroused at will. This is not far from 
the doctrine that Professor James holds in his 
"Will to Believe." From the point of view 
we have reached, it would be just as absurd to 
exhort anyone to change his belief without new 
evidence or new interpretation of old evidence 
as it would to exhort him to hasten his pulse, 
or to increase his stature. Even if he endeav- 
ored to comply, the most that could result would 
be a pretense before the world, in which there 
would be neither practical efficiency nor any 
great virtue. And as a matter of fact will and 
belief are undoubtedly common products of the 
same deeper lying forces. Whatever appeals to 
us strongly enough to tempt us to desire to be- 
lieve, by the very same appeal compels belief. 
The only exceptions are found where social re- 
wards come from pretending to believe. And in 
these cases we probably should be able to carry 
on the pretense without belief, but it is a ques- 
tion how long it would be before pretense gave 
belief. It is as necessary to believe to will as it 
is to will to believe; indeed, the former is the 
normal and usual order. 
In this discussion as throughout I have paid 
54 



BELIEF 

no attention to two important elements in the 
experiences that make for belief. These are the 
effects of actual trial, and the influences of 
society. I have omitted to mention them, not 
because they are in my opinion unimportant, 
for they are probably the two most important 
kinds of experience in the development of be- 
lief, but because the more prominent fac- 
tor in belief is the fact of the interaction of 
experiences rather than the nature of any of the 
experiences that interact. The most important 
single group of facts concerned in deciding how 
we shall believe are the results of earlier activi- 
ties. Every idea has been put to some kind 
of practical test, and the results of this test 
or tests constitute the most important part of 
the ideas in control of later belief. Further- 
more, whenever belief comes we are likely to test 
it by acting upon it, where in the nature of the 
case action is possible. It is in this that we 
find the truth of Bain's doctrine and of modern 
pragmatism. Far from disputing the state- 
ment, I am concerned only to point out that the 
grounds of action and of belief are one, and that 
both are to be found in the accumulated experi- 
ences of the individual, many of which in turn 
have been derived from the results of action. 
5 55 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF KEASONING 

Hardly to be distinguished from the active 
experiences in importance are the elements in 
belief that come from the interaction of the indi- 
vidual with his fellows. Most experiences are 
of social origin. Practically all of our knowl- 
edge, at least all of our early knowledge on all 
important matters, is taken on hearsay. With 
the borrowed knowledge there comes borrowed 
belief. The religion, politics, medical dogmas 
and so on of the young and of the masses are 
obtained at second hand, and too often from 
unintelligent or prejudiced sources. As a re- 
sult, the belief of the community becomes the 
belief of the individual. Any slight or even 
great discrepancy in these subjects between 
actual outcome and the cherished belief is cov- 
ered by the fact that the products of observa- 
tion are never clear-cut, that it is necessary to 
compare results over long periods or to collect 
numerous cases, before a conclusion can be 
established. Ignorance of statistics, or indif- 
ference to them as compared with the few cases 
that come under actual observation, sustains 
the original ignorant belief. In this sense the 
majority of beliefs have a social origin, 
although it must be asserted that advance or 
change in belief comes from the individual, not 

56 



BELIEF 

from society. The individual is ever originat- 
ing new theories which he refers to society for 
its approval. 

So far we have been dealing with the question 
of the conditions and functions of belief, but we 
have not raised the question whether there is a 
distinctive quality that attaches to the conscious 
state that is believed, that marks it off from the 
state that is refused belief or held in suspense. 
On this question there seems to be much differ- 
ence of opinion. Brentano and Wundt would 
apparently make belief a feeling on much the 
same level as any other feeling. Brentano 
would even make it one of the three funda- 
mental conscious processes. Others from their 
silence apparently do not give assent. Certain 
it is that the function is easier to demonstrate 
than the existence of a state or structure. Per- 
sonally I can discover in a moment of belief 
nothing but the stable persistence of the idea or 
state that is believed. If doubt is functionally 
the positive process, one might suspect that it 
might also be the process to which the distin- 
guishing structural characteristic attaches. In 
a measure the conjecture corresponds to ob- 
served fact. But even doubt has few enough 
characteristics. In doubt one state of opinion 

57 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

follows another, consciousness is unstable. In 
extreme cases some positive discomfort may 
show itself. Sometimes it seems that the com- 
peting masses of experience reveal themselves 
even when there is no definite presence of the 
corresponding interpretation. Certain it is 
that we doubt in many cases when there is no 
evidence in consciousness of what the alterna- 
tive is to be. What gives doubt is often very 
difficult to fix upon and still more difficult to 
describe. Much the same answer must be given 
if we ask what marks off the artistic conscious- 
ness of partial belief from the matter-of-fact 
attitude of total belief. All that can be said 
is that we never make a mistake in the actual 
interpretation, but that we cannot, or at least I 
cannot, pick out any particular quality that jus- 
tifies or characterizes the state. The function 
is easy to establish, the structure is hard to 
find. Belief is the harmony of the part that 
is believed with the whole of experience. 
Doubt, not belief, is the positive process. 
Whatever is not doubted is believed. Doubt is 
characterized by a conflict of interpretations of 
an object or a statement. The consciousness of 
doubt or belief comes not from the particular 
element but from the interacting masses of 

58 



BELIEF 

experience. The quality of doubt or belief 
is difficult to describe. It is not even pos- 
sible to say whether there is a quality of be- 
lief apart from the total consciousness of every- 
thing else. 



CHAPTER III 

MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

A second characteristic of the reasoning 
operation is that it deals with general state- 
ments, is ordinarily concerned, not with bare 
meaningless particulars, but with things that 
have meaning, and with statements and opera- 
tions that may apply to classes not to individ- 
uals. One may think of man and mean no par- 
ticular man, as well as John Smith. One may 
think of an abstract quality in no particular 
connection as well as of a single object of that 
quality. This fact is important for all formal 
logic and for modern logic and psychology. At 
least four phases of this problem may be distin- 
guished. First, — how is it possible for a single 
mental state or process to stand for or repre- 
sent all of the particulars that are meant when 
we use the term? Second, — how is it possible 
for the concrete mental image to represent ab- 
stract qualities 1 Third, — what is it that repre- 
sents the particular and the abstract? And 

60 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

finally, — what is the nature of the abstract itself 
that is represented ? These four questions nave 
not all presented themselves to the same minds. 
Perhaps all four questions could not present 
themselves definitely to the same mind at the 
same time for it is not improbable that some 
are mutually exclusive, but all have played a 
part in the theory of logic and psychology, and 
it would probably be possible to find all repre- 
sented at any period of the history of logic, if 
not of psychology. 

We can group the treatment of the problems 
about two general topics. These are, first, what 
is meaning ; second, what is the concept. About 
the one cluster the various theories as to how 
one mental state may do duty for many, or the 
concrete for the abstract; the other discusses 
the question of what it is that represents or 
is represented. The one may be discussed un- 
der meaning, the other under the concept. 
True, these two terms have not always been re- 
stricted to the significance I am giving them. 
Each has been used to designate the fact I have 
designated by the other. And even when most 
closely defined, the two functions have much in 
common. But a fringe of each is always dis- 
tinct and it seems that more is to be gained by 

61 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

retaining the two terms and circumscribing the 
meaning of each than by attempting to fuse 
the two problems into one, similar as they may 
be in general. 

Currency was given to the word and to the 
problem of meaning by the logical writings of 
Bradley and Bosanquet. Bradley used it to per- 
mit him to speak of mental operations in some 
other terms than those used by Mill in his psy- 
chology. He accepted Mill's description as 
true of the concrete actual mind, but as he 
rightly insists, we need something else to ex- 
plain the thinking processes. This need is sat- 
isfied by the world of meanings, connected with 
the images in a way that he does not make at 
all explicit. In Bradley's words every idea 
has two aspects. From one point of view it 
is merely an image, a psychological somewhat, 
and nothing more. From the other it is a 
symbol of a general idea or of a universal mean- 
ing. In this use it is no longer individual; it 
is typical, representative. For Bosanquet the 
image that one uses when one thinks stands in 
the same relation to the thing, that signal flags 
do to the messages. The flag with its color and 
form is not at all similar to the message that 
it transmits, but serves its representative func- 

62 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

tion admirably. In this sense Bradley and 
Bosanquet both insist that mental images never 
are what they mean. They are just bare exist- 
ences in crude outline, but they mean real flesh 
and blood beings in the most concrete sense. 

It must be said of the theory of Bradley and 
Bosanquet that the thing meant is not some 
more concrete process, what in the language of 
the man in the street would be called a thing, 
but is always a more developed general idea 
that is, as it always has been, a prototype of all 
particulars. They also tend to use the term 
meaning in a second sense as this general idea 
which is represented by the image. The system 
of general ideas they would call the world of 
meanings. In this world all is closely intercon- 
nected. It is a world of completely developed 
relations and is a world of universals, of types, 
not of concrete or individual ideas. They were 
driven to this world, as has been said above, 
because they could not understand how think- 
ing could go on in a mind of the kind that Mill 
describes where there is nothing but discrete 
and disconnected elements, with no principle of 
interrelation wider than the associative connec- 
tion between contiguous or successive ideas. 
The process of coming into mind seems to 

63 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

them to have two parts. First the given comes 
into the concrete mind, into the world of bare 
images, and then into the world of meanings 
or of universals. This distinction is perhaps 
more marked for Bradley than for Bosanquet, 
but even for the latter the two realms seem to 
be distinct, and how anything may pass from 
one to the other constitutes one of the impor- 
tant problems of logic. 

The theories of the nature of the concept 
developed earlier and along a slightly different 
line. The attack upon the problem was much 
more direct, but the results in many respects 
have been similar. Historically, the problem 
of the concept has been primarily the problem 
of representation. The earlier history of the 
discussions of the concept contains many un- 
necessary complications. We need not go into 
these, but we can proceed at once to a statement 
of the problem as it stands to-day. In simplest 
terms the representative function of any mental 
state depends upon its associations, its connec- 
tions with many other mental processes. This 
representative function has been traced by 
Wundt to the fact that the image is replaceable 
by any one of a large group of other images 
that have been in consciousness. The triangle 

64 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

thought or even seen on the page is representa- 
tive because it has been connected at different 
times with all other triangles and any one of 
them might be substituted for it. The state- 
ment is true for the facts of recall, but does not 
literally describe the way the connection was 
established. The representative image could 
not have been seen simultaneously with each 
particular that it represents. The number of 
particulars is too great, and observation shows 
that the concept means things with which it 
could not have been associated. 

The genesis of the concept tends to confirm 
the statement that it depends in part upon the 
associations it has made. The greater the 
number of relations into which the representa- 
tive image has entered, the wider is its meaning. 
For the child the word, color, can mean only 
the particular shades that he has seen. Every 
new color presented enriches the word by just 
so much. The same enrichment of the concept 
would be present if the representative in con- 
sciousness were not a word, but were some par- 
ticular image or anything else that had come 
to be representative of the mass of particular 
elements. If, for example, one has always con- 
nected a right angle triangle with other forms 

65 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

of triangle, or what is the more natural order 
has always connected the right triangle with 
each kind of triangle as it is presented, the right 
triangle would come to represent all others in 
thought. Whenever any form is to be treated 
in a mental operation, what would be present 
in mind would be not the form itself, but would 
be the right triangle. Bepresentation would 
then be fundamentally dependent upon the fact 
that the mental process in question might be 
replaced by any one of the particular elements 
without having it necessary to change any of 
the uses to which the imagery actually used 
might be put. This possibility of replacement 
depends primarily upon the associative connec- 
tions of the representative element, but one 
would hardly dare to say, that everything that 
it represents has actually been associated with 
it at some time in the past. 

In addition to the connections that may be 
reinstated, some conscious sign that these par- 
ticular connections and no others are in exist- 
ence undoubtedly attaches to the element itself. 
Thus, when one is using a right triangle as 
representatives of all triangles, it will be used 
in different ways and with more associates than 
when one is using the same mental impression 

66 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

as a symbol for right triangles alone, and that 
in spite of the fact that the image is identical 
in the two cases. What this difference is it is 
not easy to say from an analysis of the con- 
scious content. Wundt calls it the concept feel- 
ing, but that is not to describe it and Wundt is 
always very ready with names for processes, 
vague feeling processes at least, that give very 
little enlightenment concerning the nature of 
the mental state and are accompanied by very 
little description of the feelings that are desig- 
nated. That there is something in conscious- 
ness that checks a use of the mental state when 
one is inclined to use it in a way that the con- 
crete things it represents would not permit, 
seems to me indisputable, but how much con- 
sciousness may attach to this inhibiting func- 
tion is a question that I am not prepared to 
answer on the basis of my own introspection. 
If there be any consciousness, it must corre- 
spond to the wider connections of the mental 
state at the moment and not to the mental state 
itself. There can not be consciousness of all 
the associations into which it has entered in 
the past because, as we have seen, not all of the 
associates are effective in controlling the uses 
to which the concept may be put. Our triangle 

67 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

would have one set of uses and on our present 
theory one set of feelings when it meant one 
thing ; another use and another feeling when it 
represented another. Certainly, it is hardly to 
be supposed that the image as a separate ele- 
ment has a different quality when it represents 
one set of particulars, and another when it rep- 
resents another set. For the same image, con- 
sidered as an image, does duty not for one 
set of particulars alone, but for many such sets. 
If the quality were the differentia it would be 
necessary to assume that each representing 
element would have as many possible qualities 
as there were different sets of particulars that 
it might represent. Evidently, then, the con- 
sciousness that marks the representative ele- 
ment as representative, as distinct from the 
same state as non-representative, cannot be 
found in the mental state itself. The conscious- 
ness that a mental state is representative in 
one way at one time and in another way at 
another is not to be related to the core of the 
image. Physiologically, at least, the conscious- 
ness must be dependent upon the connections, 
as is evident from the fact that the uses to 
which the element is put depend for their nature 
upon the experience of the individual in the 

68 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

past. Even this can not be the whole story, 
however, because the function shows that what 
is effective is not the entire mass of associates, 
but merely one small group that changes from 
moment to moment with the group of particu- 
lars represented. 

If on the one hand the consciousness that 
marks the mental state as representative does 
not belong to the element alone, but to its con- 
nections, and on the other hand does not belong 
to all of its connections but to certain ones 
only, it is evidently essential to discover the 
elements or processes that contribute something 
to the consciousness of the moment as well as 
serve to extend the consciousness of the image 
beyond the simple state. This, I think, we may 
discover in the purpose or momentary mental 
set that controls the course of association at 
any moment. This purpose or context it is 
that limits the associates that may be aroused 
by our triangle. At one time it limits the ef- 
fective associates to right triangles of all 
shapes and forms, and at another moment it 
extends the possibility of excitation to all tri- 
angles of any kind whatsoever. If the prob- 
lem be understood to deal with the properties 
of but one kind of triangle the associates are 

69 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

limited by this understanding, this context, to 
that one sort of figure. If the purpose be to 
attain some knowledge of triangles in general, 
the field of representation is extended to cover 
all types. Apparently, then, the consciousness 
that attaches to the representative image is not 
confined to that process alone, but is extended 
to include all the ideas that are likely to be 
recalled by that element under the given con- 
trolling purpose, in the given context. If we 
look at the matter physiologically, we may say 
that consciousness during one of these proc- 
esses of representation is not restricted to the 
nerve cell or group of nerve cells that would 
ordinarily be aroused by what we call the sim- 
ple sensation, but that it corresponds to that 
set of nerve cells plus all the other nerve 
cells and connections of nerve cells that might 
be aroused by it at that moment and in that 
context. What gives variety to the conscious- 
ness as the representative function changes, is 
the different set of associated cells that are 
aroused to partial activity in the different con- 
texts. Whether the cells are actually partly 
aroused, are in a state of slight excitation, or 
the consciousness attaches to the mere tendency 
toward association, is a matter of indifference 

70 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

to our present problem. We would find the 
consciousness that marks a mental state as rep- 
resentative, not in the state itself, but in the 
wider group of connections in which it is pre- 
sented, and in certain associated processes 
which it tends to arouse. It is not even certain 
that any particular consciousness attaches to 
the state to distinguish it as representative 
from the same state as non-representative. 
Certain it is that the uses to which it can be 
put are different in the two cases and it is 
more important to discover the difference in 
use than to determine the quality of conscious- 
ness. Another aspect of the concept brings us 
back close to the problem of meaning as it has 
already been discussed in connection with the 
logic of Bradley and Bosanquet. We think of 
things as general and of abstract qualities. 
The conscious representatives of things in gen- 
eral correspond very closely to the meaning of 
Bradley. It remains to decide whether the con- 
cepts as they are found in mind at all resemble 
the elements of the world of meanings as they 
are described by the modern logicians. 

The first element of the description furnished 
by the neo-Hegelians suggestive of the real 
mind is that the world of meanings is typical. 
6 71 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

If we examine any bit of thinking, particularly 
any bit of abstract representation, we find that 
we have in mind not the image of any individual 
thing, but a more general type that resembles 
no one experience more than any other, but 
which stands for all. This typical idea is the 
one most used; the experience that will satisfy 
the largest number of practical needs. We are 
likely to regard the typical as real, as opposed 
to the departures from it that are treated as 
mere ideas. Illustrations are to be found most 
readily perhaps in the realm of space percep- 
tion. I have seen my study table quite as often 
as a trapezoid as I have as a rectangle, yet I 
never think of it as anything other than as hav- 
ing a square top with the legs perpendicular 
to the top. All the other perceptions have van- 
ished, this persists. It alone is recalled when- 
ever I think of the table. Similar types or 
standards of reference tend to grow up for a 
class as well as for the different forms that are 
assumed by the same object under the condi- 
tions of perception. The table that serves me 
as a standard of reference in my thinking proc- 
esses is some piece of furniture that has all of 
the essentials of the class with none of the parts 
that are present for adornment only. The type 

72 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

in this instance is much less definitely repre- 
sented, and in some minds is, as will be seen 
later, not definitely pictured at all. But even 
at that, what remains is probably to be regarded 
as a part or product of the typical image. 

That this tendency to think in terms of types 
or standards is very general is not assumed 
upon the basis of chance observation and intro- 
spection alone, but has been demonstrated in a 
number of experimental investigations. In the 
recognition experiments of Lehmann 1 we have 
what is perhaps the locus classicus. Lehmann, 
it will be remembered, found that in recogniz- 
ing grays, there was always a tendency to recog- 
nize shades in terms of the words that had been 
assigned on the original presentation. As 
many different shades could be recognized on 
representation as there were words in the vo- 
cabulary of the subject. Early there were six 
words, and six shades could be immediately 
recognized. When numbers were associated 
with the shades, and were repeated often 
enough to become well fixed, as many shades 
could be kept distinct as there were numbers. 
Practice carried the numbers to nine, and it 

i Lehmann: "Ueber das Wiedererkennen," Phil. Studien, VII. 
469. 

73 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

was found that the process of recognition con- 
sisted in assigning the color that was presented 
to its number. The number seemed to serve as 
the standard for recognition. Similarly, if one 
attempts to recall colors and grays, it will be 
noticed that all can be recalled that have been 
given definite names, that correspond to distinct 
types. These results have since been con- 
firmed by a number of observers. Moreover, in 
some instances it is not necessary to recall the 
word, but the standard may be present as a 
vague image or even something less than an 
image. Here the reference is to the standard, 
but the standard is ideated in somewhat indefi- 
nite terms. Thus, in Dr. Hay den's * experi- 
ments on the recognition of lifted weights, the 
second weight was not compared with the first, 
but each was compared with a standard. This 
standard was only vaguely pictured, but there 
was little difficulty in being sure that the weight 
offered was heavier or lighter than the sub- 
jective standard. Similar results have been 
found in estimating or comparing lengths of 
movements. Schumann found standards of 
time that seemed to develop in the course of 

i Hayden : "Memory for Lifted Weights," Am. Jour. Psych., 
13, p. 497. 

74 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

short intervals of practice, in comparison with 
which intervals were judged to be short or long. 
In both of the last mentioned cases motor ad- 
justments undoubtedly get established as the 
result of frequent repetitions. The same sort 
of thing is to be seen in the Einstellung of 
Miiller and Schumann in the experiments on 
lifted weights. Weights seemed very heavy or 
very light according to the motor adjustment 
that had been established by the earlier experi- 
ments of the series. The sort of adjustment 
that is established for a brief interval in these 
experiments can be found in the other cases 
to extend over a longer period of time. In fact, 
in some of the experiments they were found to 
persist and to serve as standards of reference 
from day to day and even throughout the whole 
period of the experimentation. 

Turn where you will in every day life, stand- 
ards have the same tendency to develop. These 
serve to represent the particulars, and through 
frequent use they come always to replace the 
particulars in thought. They are usually devi- 
ations from some one single element of those 
that they typify, and are related to all. These 
types or standards are not confined to intensi- 
ties or extents or qualities, although they are 

75 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

easier to demonstrate there, but objects of all 
kinds tend to crystallize about some one com- 
mon form. They are convenient for recalling 
the particulars, and while each particular that 
may reappear will be different from the stand- 
ard in some respect, the difference is not suffi- 
cient to impair the value of the result. What 
we remember and what we think or reason 
about is always this type, never the particular. 
Even when we attempt to recall some particular 
as different from the type, we ordinarily recall 
the type first and then recall the departures 
from it. In this, the process of recall is not 
different from the process of description. If 
you describe a new object you recall an estab- 
lished type and state departures from it. The 
world that we have in memory or in reason is 
not the sum of particular experiences ; it is al- 
ways the mass of particular experiences worked 
over and crystallized about standards. This 
simplification of the world is an enormous con- 
venience. The appearance of the simplification 
marks the beginning of a really effective under- 
standing. The savage is said to remember a 
path by recalling each turn or object along the 
way. The civilized man remembers only the 
general direction with reference to north or 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

south and by means of this reference to the 
compass is able at the expense of less effort to 
accomplish as much or more than the man of 
better concrete memory. 

The pictures of the world that are offered by 
science show similar tendencies to group facts 
about typical forms. The pictures of the world 
that the chemist gives us of a mass of atoms in 
interaction, or that the physicist describes in 
his various forms of energy, are to be regarded 
as types that connect and represent large num- 
bers of discrete events. They are like all indi- 
vidual facts, but are identical with none. Tak- 
ing these various statements together, we must 
agree with Bradley and Bosanquet that the 
world of thought and even the world of mem- 
ory is not the mass of absolutely separate con- 
crete experiences that is ordinarily used to ex- 
plain it. The real mind differs from Mill's 
mass of discrete elements in two respects. In 
the first place it, is composed of types rather 
than of concrete impressions; in the second 
place the various types are all interrelated, 
they do not stand in isolation one from the 
other. In both of these particulars the world 
of memory is like the neo-Hegelian world of 
universals. It differs from that world of mean- 

77 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

ings, however, in that the types are apparently 
not preformed and in existence before the ex- 
perience of the individual, but seem to develop 
in and through experience. 

Certain experiments give a clue to the way 
in which types originate from the concrete ex- 
periences. One of the earlier investigations 
that throw some light on the problem was car- 
ried on by Leuba. 1 He found a tendency for 
impressions when recalled to group about the 
central values of the series in which they oc- 
curred when first seen. Somewhat the same 
result was obtained in investigating the memory 
for numbers by Xilliez, 2 a little later. The 
digits were displaced in memory toward the 
average. Still later, Bentley 3 found that there 
was always a displacement toward the back- 
ground, — that colors tended to be remembered 
as lighter than they actually were when exposed 
in a light room and tended to become darker 
when shown in the dark. These results might 
be interpreted as an indication that there is a 

i Leuba : "A Suggestion of a Law of Sense Memory," 
American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 5, p. 370. 

2 Xilliez : "La continuity des chiffres dans la memoire," 
L'Annee psychologique, 1895, p. 201. 

s Bentley : "The Qualitative Fidelity of the Memory Im- 
age," American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 11, p. 1. 

78 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

tendency, unconscious and uncontrollable, for 
concrete experiences to fuse into a single ele- 
ment and that the tendency is for each element 
of a group to be displaced toward the center of 
the mass. If we continue the argument it 
would seem altogether probable that the mass 
that results from the fusion would in time crys- 
tallize completely about the center, and that 
with the completion of the process we should 
have a type that represented the mass. As 
many types would develop as there were centers 
of crystallization, and the number of centers 
would be determined by the practical necessi- 
ties. Where a group of experiences was of 
frequent occurrence and of great practical im- 
portance there would be a larger number of 
lines of cleavage than in less familiar and less 
important material. The lines of cleavage 
themselves would similarly correspond to the 
needs of the individual or social group with 
which one has to do. Among people of our 
own race, there are innumerable distinctions of 
type. People all tend to fall somewhat into 
types consciously or unconsciously, but the 
types are numerous. The centers of crystal- 
lization are ordinarily immediate friends. 
However the groups may have originated, they 

79 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

serve our practical purposes of recognition, 
memory and description. In a race that is un- 
familiar the number of types is much smaller, 
and the capacity for distinguishing very slight. 
It is a familiar saying that all Chinamen look 
alike, and I presume that in China the same 
statement mutatis mutandum would be made of 
Caucasians. One word of caution may be 
necessary to guard against the assumption that 
these elements which fuse are present as actual 
sensations at all times. Of course what is pres- 
ent is a nervous disposition, and the only evi- 
dence of the fusion is the fact that after a 
large number of experiences, we find the type 
making its appearance as the representative of 
the group. 

It is not at all improbable that a large part 
of the development of the type is dependent 
upon the results of a method of trial and error. 
One representation is tried and as soon as it 
is seen not to fit in with all of the other experi- 
ences it is rejected or modified in some way and 
a new type or a modification of the old one is 
tried. This process is continued and results in 
a constant shifting of types. The type of one 
stage will work for the experiences that have 
accumulated so far. These trials are not con- 

80 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

scious, nor are we aware that we are either 
developing types or testing them. All that can 
be made out is that we always have a type of 
one kind or another and that the types are in 
flux, gradual for our more familiar objects and 
experiences, rather rapid for the newer objects 
and experiences. 

These types are not restricted to objects in 
the usual sense of the word, but cover relations 
as well. Differences in duration have crystal- 
lized about the time idea; in size and direction 
have given rise to space differences of greater or 
less definiteness. It is entirely conceivable that 
a larger number of relations than we have might 
have become fixed in the chaos of differences, 
but only those that were practically important 
to us did get established. The directions of the 
compass, for example, seem grounded in the 
nature of things, but there is no reason why, if 
it had been convenient, there might not have 
been six cardinal points rather than four, or 
seven rather than six. For the mariner who 
needs to use the finer divisions south-southeast 
is probably as much of a type, as much of a 
fixed thing, as north is to us. His need has 
by trial developed his types. In the duodecimal 
system twelve seemed fully as much a fixed 

81 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

thing as ten for us. There is no reason to sup- 
pose that there might not be a greater number 
of ways in which objects might differ than those 
that we recognize. It is conceivable that things 
might be different in other respects than in in- 
tensity, quality, duration and extent. But these 
by trial have been found convenient and so are 
fully established; the other differences are 
thrown together under the general head of de- 
partures from the four fixed relations. If we 
can imagine the child consciousness as existing 
without these types, we can get some idea of 
what chaos of impression might be. There is 
probably for the young child neither up nor 
down, right nor left, before nor after, greater 
nor less. All is without difference, or at least 
without order in difference. One would know 
that two things were different, but would have 
no idea how. It would be like the threshold 
discriminations of the laboratory where the 
awareness of difference makes its appearance 
before the awareness of the direction of the 
difference. Gradually as different sorts of dif- 
ference would get grouped about some one 
striking type there would be the beginning of 
appreciation. Growth in definiteness would be 
exactly pari passu with the development of the 

82 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

type. Some of us who know little of music have 
this confusion when discussing the musical 
qualities, or the qualities of the simple tones. 
Some, I speak for myself, find it difficult to tell 
pitch from intensity, or higher from lower in 
the way of tonal differences. The reason lies 
undoubtedly in the fact that no types have crys- 
tallized out, that there are no points of refer- 
ence. For them, use of musical terms is parrot- 
like repetition, without meaning. 

If we ask what the imagery of the type may 
be, how it is thought, the answer is, look at 
your consciousness of any object and whatever 
you find there is the type. It undoubtedly 
varies from individual to individual. The dif- 
ference in imagery is one example of the fact. 
Some have found it convenient to drop all but 
the visual elements, others all but the auditory, 
others again all but the motor. Some have 
combinations of these, some seem to do with- 
out any definite imagery of any kind. This fact 
of the disappearance of some elements is itself 
an evidence of types. Entire sense depart- 
ments may drop out and be typified by others 
for all practical purposes. In exactly the same 
way any one element of the sense department 
may disappear, and the type still persist. In 

83 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

this case the consciousness is probably of the 
connections rather than of the center. In brief, 
then, types have developed from experience to 
explain experience, although they may be ex- 
actly like no single experience. The problem of 
the connection between the type or meaning and 
the concrete consciousness now presents itself. 
How, in the words of the neo-Hegelian logician, 
does the concrete idea come to stand for this 
interconnected mass of meanings'? The mass 
of meanings exists even if it is not independent 
of and antecedent to experience. Here again 
one must be careful not to attack problems that 
have no real existence. It has been tacitly as- 
sumed that the representative and the type 
were in some measure identical and that the 
type is the representative of the concrete ex- 
periences and of discrete events. This, I think, 
can be extended explicitly in the statement that 
the world of meanings and the world of types 
is not merely the representative of discrete 
antecedent events in consciousness, but that the 
world of types or meanings is throughout the 
only consciousness that we have, that it is 
identical with the empirical human conscious- 
ness wherever it presents itself. Thought is 
not in particular mental images. When we 

84 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

think, the type or standard is in consciousness 
and nothing else. Nor is the monopolizing of 
consciousness by types and standards confined 
to reasoning and memory. In perception as 
well, we are conscious of nothing but the type, 
of nothing but the meaning. "What persists as 
we look at an article of furniture is not the 
trapezoid or rhomboid that ordinarily falls 
upon the retina, but is the rectangle that ex- 
periences of other kinds have taught us most 
accurately represents the object. We may go 
farther. Not only do we not remember the 
trapezoids and rhomboids, but we do not even 
perceive them, under the usual conditions. If 
a person, skilled in drawing or in observation 
of spatial forms, looks at the table top carefully, 
he can convince himself that the image that 
falls upon the retina is not rectangular, but if 
one looks in the ordinary practical way what 
one actually sees is the rectangular table top, 
not the rhomboid. The uninstructed person 
has probably never for a moment thought of 
anything but the rectangle in connection with 
the table top. He has received nothing but the 
meaning; the sensational contributions have 
never really entered his consciousness. 

The same sort of illustration of the universal 
85 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

dominance of the meaning or the type can be 
found in any part of the field of space percep- 
tion. We always see objects of their standard 
size, not of the size they may chance to have 
upon the retina. This standard size is the size 
they have at the usual distance or, if tools, 
where we are in the habit of using them. A 
person is of the size that he has upon the retina 
when at conversational distance, a house is seen 
relatively much smaller because we must be 
farther away to appreciate it, a hammer is of 
the size that it would have at arm's length, etc., 
etc. Sensational elements that are of no value 
are not seen, as in the case of contrast colors 
and after-images. In hearing a foreign lan- 
guage there is no real perception until it is 
understood. The words are merely a jumble of 
sounds until types develop within the language 
itself to which they may be referred. Before 
that however they are not meaningless in the 
absolute sense but they are referred to the cate- 
gory of mere noise. As knowledge grows, the 
number of types or standards increases, until 
with complete knowledge we have a complete 
set of preformed types. At the moment of per- 
ception these start out to meet the incoming 
stimulus and the result is what we know as the 

86 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

object or percept. Of course in thus emphasiz- 
ing the influence of the type, I have no intention 
to deny the importance of the stimulus. Were 
one to assert that the type were everything, 
stimulus nothing, there would be no possibility 
of accounting for the constant change in types 
and standards that goes on in the individual 
and has gone on in the race. But the type is 
too often overlooked to the undue emphasis of 
the stimulus, and an over emphasis upon the 
type may only serve to restore the normal bal- 
ance. 

All perception, then, as well as all thinking 
is in terms of the meaning rather than in terms 
of crude discrete memory images. The mean- 
ings develop out of experience, as well as serve 
to give order to experience. In fact they serve 
in the developed consciousness to constitute ex- 
perience, not merely to give it form from 
without. If we compare the results of our dis- 
cussion with the theory of the neo-Hegelian 
logicians, we find that we are in agreement 
with them, that the meaning is the real material 
of reasoning. We differ from them, however, 
in insisting that meanings develop out of experi- 
ence, and are consequently not independent of 
experience, and in believing that instead of 
7 87 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SEASONING 

standing above the concrete consciousness they 
constitute the concrete consciousness, — that we 
know nothing else. The meaningful and the 
conscious are identical and, conversely, the 
meaningless and the unconscious are identical 
terms. 

This raises another question. If there is 
nothing in consciousness but meanings, what is 
meant in psychological discussions by making 
sensations and their associations the basis 
of all explanation? The answer is simple 
in the light of our present position. Sen- 
sations and the laws for the connection 
of sensation are merely types that have 
developed in the course of the attempts to ex- 
plain mental processes in the same way that 
right angles have developed in the course of 
the attempts to explain the articles of furniture 
about. They are the most simple forms of ex- 
perience that have been selected as typical of 
all mental operations, they serve to represent 
the thought processes as atoms do the chemical 
operations, or nerve cells the operations of the 
brain. They are themselves meanings, not sen- 
sations in the sense of being crude and immedi- 
ate results of the action of stimuli. Just as 
the visual image is brought before conscious- 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

ness to explain the processes of perception when 
we become aware that the problem exists, so 
sensations are developed to explain the mental 
operations in general when we turn around on 
the mental operation to ask how it works and 
what it is. In this sense sensation and the in- 
terrelations of sensations may be regarded as 
types, but the meaning and other departures 
from the type may be fully as near the truth of 
concrete operation. 

Our description of the nature of the meaning 
would be incomplete if we did not connect its 
characteristic of constituting a type with the 
characteristic of being representative of the par- 
ticulars and of being in connection with the par- 
ticulars that it is to represent and with other 
meanings. All that we said of the way in 
which one mental process may represent others 
is true of our type or meaning. As has been 
said, the type is a product of a large number of 
experiences, and that means probably that the 
nervous connections of the different experiences 
that go to make up the type are in a large 
measure identical. In so far as the nervous 
processes at the basis of the particulars are not 
identical with those of the meaning or the type 
and so in a state of activity at the moment that 

89 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

the type is in consciousness, they are closely 
associated with it, and through this associative 
connection are undoubtedly active in some 
small degree. The meaning is then what it is, 
— in the first place, because the nervous proc- 
esses at the basis of the particulars are in large 
measure identical ; secondly, because those nerve 
processes that correspond to divergent partic- 
ulars are also in some degree excited by irradia- 
tion over association paths. The consciousness 
of meaning like the consciousness of represen- 
tation is undoubtedly correlated with the activ- 
ity of a very wide-spread nervous activity. 
This process of interaction between the meaning 
and the particular is a twofold one. Because 
of the close relation of nerve paths the meaning 
tends to call up the particular when it appears 
and is controlled in its effect by that fact ; but, 
on the other hand, as we have seen, the partic- 
ular when it appears in consciousness tends to 
arouse the general, the type or meaning. For 
that reason no particular can have entered con- 
sciousness without having aroused the meaning, 
and consequently every particular must be asso- 
ciated with the type that represents it. The 
type must have been present at its birth. It 
can only really get into the mental world by the 

90 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

aid of the meaning. If a stimulus is to enter 
consciousness it must be reacted upon and when 
reacted upon it becomes a meaning. 

If one were to push the matter but a step 
farther, one could find a sense in which meaning 
could be designated with Gore 1 as the reaction 
of the organism. Every group of particulars 
tends to find expression in action. There are 
a limited number of motor responses and in con- 
sequence the particulars of the group must have 
a common motor response, just as they must 
have sensory processes that are in large part 
common or closely connected. While I am not 
inclined to lay as much stress upon the motor 
side of the process as are many of my col- 
leagues, yet it is undoubtedly true that the 
motor processes contribute something to the 
total consciousness, and whatever they do con- 
tribute must be added to the meaning. I am 
inclined to believe that particulars have a com- 
mon motor response because they have a com- 
mon meaning rather than that they have a 
common meaning because they have a common 
motor response. But this difference may be 
one of emphasis not of principle. The diver- 
gence in the theories at this point is not essen- 

1 Dewey: "Studies in Logical Theory," p. 184. 
91 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

tial to the doctrine of meaning that has been 
sketched, however wide it may be as to the rela- 
tive importance of the motor processes in con- 
sciousness. 

If we turn now to the old group of problems 
treated historically in connection with the con- 
cept, we find that they are in many respects 
identical with the problems of meaning. The 
old problem that seems to have survived most 
definitely in the formal treatises on pedagogy 
was how can we tell the concept from the per- 
cept? What is in consciousness when we think 
a general? The best answer that can be given 
to-day is that anything may be in mind as 
this representative, we might say anything or 
nothing. It is always the type. But the type 
may be of the form that we call the particular 
image, it may be a word, or there may be noth- 
ing at all of which one can be certain. In fact 
what makes a concept a concept is not the qual- 
ity or character of the conscious element, but 
the connections into which it enters. If we 
begin with a particular as a well developed 
type, feature after feature may drop away and 
the function still remain the same. The struc- 
ture, if structure there be, is at most nothing 
more than a center of crystallization. Its 

92 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

essence consists in the wide-spread connections. 
These we have seen probably contribute some 
conscious quality to the total and it is not at 
all impossible that the center may disappear 
as a conscious process and the consciousness 
of relation still persist. In fact, if we look at 
the entire process as one of adjustment, the 
movements may undoubtedly go on that would 
be called out by a type after the consciousness 
has worn off. There is no reason to assume 
that the representative function and even the 
representative or concept feeling might not per- 
sist in much the same way after all the con- 
sciousness of the original particular, or even of 
the type as a structure, had ceased to appear. 
Of more importance than any analogy that 
would make it possible is the fact that Pro- 
fessor Woodworth has established in several 
fields that it is possible, even usual, in some 
individuals for the representative function to 
be present without any noticeable content. As 
I understand it he would agree with me that 
imageless thought is primarily characterized 
by the fact of close nervous connection. I am 
not sure that he would not have more conscious- 
ness than the bare awareness of connection 
to which I have reduced concept feeling, or at 

93 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

least I am not sure that he would not insist 
that there must be a different kind of con- 
sciousness. Structurally, then, percept and con- 
cept may be identical. The same type might 
be present in each. What distinguishes is the 
function. Function in this case depends ap- 
parently upon the connections into which the 
process may enter. 

We seem to have practically identified the 
terms meaning and concept. A meaning is 
essentially the fact that a mental state, what- 
ever its kind, is typical and tends to represent 
and to be connected with a large number of 
particulars, but a concept is a concept just be- 
cause of its connections with these particular 
impressions that have been experienced in the 
past. The concept then is the center of ref- 
erence plus its connections considered from the 
particulars inward toward the center. Mean- 
ing is the fact of reference considered from 
the center outward. No wonder the two are 
frequently confused! 

There is one other use of the concept that 
has been prominently represented in the his- 
tory of logic, formal logic more especially. 
That is to regard it not as representative of 
particulars but as itself a mass of qualities or 

94 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

attributes. Man, for example, not merely re- 
fers to all particular men in the way that we 
have been considering it but it also implies or 
stands for all human qualities or characteris- 
tics. This is a representative function of an- 
other kind that depends, however, upon the 
same law of associative connection. As was 
seen in the preliminary discussion of psycholog- 
ical principles, we are never conscious at the 
same moment of all of the characteristics of 
an object. In fact, only one quality is ordi- 
narily prominent in perception or thought at 
any one time. The different successive aspects 
all tend to recall each other, because the less 
prominent characteristics of each total impres- 
sion are common. These in turn come to con- 
nect the separate prominent characteristics. 
An object comes in thought to be made up of 
a core from which many associates irradiate; 
these latter give the real basis for the belief 
that it has the composition asserted. It serves 
to recall all of the prominent characteristics 
that have been connected with it. In this sense 
a concept may be regarded as a sum total of 
qualities each of which has at various times 
been selected from the mass for special promi- 
nence. The representation is on the same 

95 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

basis as the representation of particular objects. 
It is primarily based on associative recall. 

The concept snow, for example, is regarded 
as having the attributes, whiteness, hexagonal 
form of crystallization, a melting point of 0° 
centigrade, certain optical properties, etc., etc. 
This means, if we reduce it to actual fact, that 
when we have looked at snow at one time we 
have been struck by its color, at another time 
we have noted the form of its crystals, at an- 
other have melted it and determined the tem- 
perature when melting. Now when we think 
of snow we know that it is possible to regain 
all of these effects* We do not necessarily 
mean that all are conscious at any one time, 
or that the concept is the sum of these attri- 
butes in any real sense. All that we have in the 
concept, psychologically, is the possibility of 
recalling, when the concept is presented, each 
of these aspects, each of the perceptions of 
these phases. We may agree with Sigwart 
that the concept grows out of separate experi- 
ences or judgments. 

Two facts stand out from the discussion as 
the explanation and solution of all of our prob- 
lems. These are the facts of the wide interre- 
lation and connection of part with part and the 

96 



MEANING AND THE CONCEPT 

fact that a prominent feature of the conscious- 
ness of any thing is the consciousness of its 
interrelations. The second is the fact that sep- 
arate experiences lose their identity in a type. 
This type is a standard that has been found 
to harmonize the various experiences of the 
class better than any one of the separate expe- 
riences could. As a result it comes to replace 
the individual in all of our thinking and even 
to constitute the perception. The stimulus 
calls it into consciousness rather than its own 
mere particular conscious accompaniment. 
The type comes to take over the representative 
function. It is well adapted to this since all 
the elements of the class call it out when they 
enter consciousness and all have therefore been 
connected with it. That types may have dif- 
ferent representative functions at different 
times is due to the different associates that are 
in partial activity at these different times. Its 
consciousness is at all times very largely due 
to the association paths that irradiate from it. 
These connections are of two kinds. They 
tend to lead to the particular experiences, and 
they tend also to lead to the different aspects 
or qualities that have come to be connected with 
the core or type. The one group we call the 

97 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

particulars that are represented, the other 
group is designated the attributes of the con- 
cept. The center from which the irradiation 
takes place may be called the concept ; the irra- 
diations themselves, the meaning. 



CHAPTEE IV 

JUDGMENT 

The first step toward reasoning, as it is ordi- 
narily treated, is the judgment. The end of 
reasoning is inference, and judgment is pre- 
liminary to inference in practically every sys- 
tem. Judgment prepares the way for infer- 
ence, either by interpreting the given, as in the 
more modern discussions, or by providing the 
material that is to be manipulated in infer- 
ence as treated in the ordinary formal logic. 
In judgment, in either use, the problems of 
reasoning as an active process are approached. 
Heretofore the materials or the signs of reason- 
ing alone have been considered. 

But before the judgment can be discussed, it is 
necessary to agree on the meaning of the term. 
The word has been applied in a number of dif- 
ferent ways at different times, and there can 
not now be said to be any particular use that 
is common or even general. The earliest use 
in the literature of logic was to designate the 

99 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

conjunction of two concepts. Whenever two 
concepts were combined in a proposition, there 
was said to be a judgment. This definition is 
verbal rather than psychological, as are all the 
definitions of formal logic. That it is not defi- 
nitely drawn with reference to the psycholog- 
ical processes is well indicated by the great 
variety of views that have been held as to the 
nature of the connection between the two con- 
cepts and the great difference of opinion as to 
the nature of the concept itself. The two con- 
cepts, subject and predicate, that were regarded 
as constituting the judgment when united, have 
been said to be analyzed from a common whole, 
and to be combined into a common unit when 
the elements were originally discrete. Judg- 
ment is regarded as a process of classification, 
as the statement of an equation, as an assertion 
of the existence of the subject, to mention only 
a few of the more frequent definitions. 

The variety and kinds of relations assigned 
are incompatible with the possibility that the 
judgment has any close relation to real psy- 
chological processes. This opinion is strength- 
ened by the discussion of the concept in the last 
chapter. The concept that the formal logician 
has in mind in his treatment is necessarily 

100 



JUDGMENT 

the concept as a sum of separate qualities. 
This, as was seen, is not and cannot be a psy- 
chological process because we have in mind at 
any time not all the qualities that are meant 
by the concept, but one only. "We shall have to 
consider, at a later time, the real relation be- 
tween the judgment as defined by the formal 
logic and the mental state. Suffice it now to 
say that the judgment of formal logic is a mat- 
ter of language primarily, not of psychology. 
We must seek the psychological counterpart of 
the judgment elsewhere. 

In our search we may turn for aid from for- 
mal logic to the popular uses of the term and 
to the theories that have been built upon the 
common-sense meaning. Two meanings of the 
term are prominent in popular usage. These 
are as the equivalent of comparison and as 
evaluation, or comparison with a standard. 
We speak popularly and even in the accepted 
psychological nomenclature of the estimation 
or comparison of intensities or qualities as 
judgments. The "judgment of lifted weights " 
is a very familiar term in the psychological 
vocabulary. We judge when we compare. 
Judgment and comparison in every day speech 
are interchangeable. Still more primitive and 

101 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

fundamental is the use of judgment as equiv- 
alent to evaluation. This, the legal use of the 
term, is probably the most primitive. When 
a criminal is sentenced, his crime is appre- 
ciated with reference to the scale of crimes 
recognized by the law, and the penalty that has 
been accepted as equivalent to the crime is 
assessed. Objects are judged in the same way 
in every day life. They are referred to a more 
or less definite standard. 

In addition to the two popular uses of the 
term two theoretical meanings need to be con- 
sidered, since it is easy to give them an imme- 
diate psychological correlate. These are the 
use of judgment to designate belief, Brentano's 
definition, and its use as equivalent to ascribing 
meaning, the definition most usual in modern 
logic. Brentano, one of the first of modern 
psychologists to pay much attention to the log- 
ical processes, found judgment in the process 
of accepting or rejecting any presentation; in 
attaching or refusing to attach belief to the 
presentation. The other definition goes back 
to the conception of meaning as it is used, or 
was first used, by the neo-Hegelians. When- 
ever an impression comes to consciousness it is 
necessary that meaning be attached. To attach 

102 



JUDGMENT 

meaning is to judge. These two definitions are 
to be connected with the discussions of the two 
preceding chapters, and they consequently need 
no further description at this point. The only 
characteristic that these four uses of the term 
judgment have in common, when superficially 
regarded, is that all seem in some way to apply 
to the process by which an impression gains en- 
trance to consciousness. It is our problem, 
then, to determine if there is sufficient similar- 
ity between the different processes that have 
been designated judgment to enable us to reduce 
them all to one, or if not to select some one 
phase that we can justify as the type of the 
process as it is defined both by formal logic 
and by popular usage and adopt it arbitrarily 
for our own use. 

As a preliminary a more complete examina- 
tion of each of the four mental operations must 
be undertaken. For this it will be well to begin 
with the ascription of meaning, for which the 
last chapter was a preparation. What can the 
modern logician mean when he defines judg- 
ment as the process of attaching meaning to 
the given? It has already developed that the 
meaning is the typical while the given is as- 
sumed to be the particular presentation. But 
8 103 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

it also appeared that there was nothing in con- 
sciousness but the meaning. The bare given 
is not a real mental state but so far as can be 
seen it is entirely a psychological or logical 
construction. The difficulty with the modern 
logician's definition of judgment as the appli- 
cation of meaning to the given, is not with the 
final result but with the starting point, the 
implication that the given exists as meaningless 
before it is given meaning. It is not necessary 
to attach meaning to the given because the given 
does not exist except as the meaningful. Be- 
fore it takes on meaning the process can at most 
be nothing other than the physiological or the 
physical. Entrance into consciousness and 
taking on meaning are identical. To assert that 
judgment is the attachment of meaning to the 
given, then, comes to mean, in the light of psy- 
chological investigation, nothing more than the 
process of entering consciousness. Judgment 
and entrance into consciousness are identical. 
Judgment must apply only to perception, not 
to memory. 

It is necessary, then, to determine what is 
involved in entering consciousness that is per- 
tinent to the logical operation. Perhaps this 
may be brought out most easily, if we use 

104 



JUDGMENT 

Mill's psychology as a corpus vile, as did Brad- 
ley, to emphasize the importance of the more 
recent advances. A corpus vile probably could 
not remain a corpus vile long if treated sym- 
pathetically, so we shall follow our model in 
departing from the truth, if at all, by empha- 
sizing the crudities of Mill's position rather 
than the points in which it serves in some meas- 
ure to explain the actual workings of mind. 
For Mill mental states were assumed to be par- 
ticular until they made themselves universal. 
He apparently believed that it was possible for 
a group of stimuli to act upon consciousness 
from without through the sense organ, and to 
remain just a group of sensations that corre- 
sponded to those stimuli when they appeared in 
consciousness. Amalgamation with anything 
already in consciousness was incidental, and 
then was amalgamation only with the few past 
associates. As opposed to this we have been 
endeavoring to show, and I think practically all 
psychologists would agree to-day, that there is 
some kind of reception of the group of stimuli 
into a predeveloped system. That this system 
is necessarily aroused when the stimulus pre- 
sents itself and that what is seen is not primar- 
ily, at least not alone, the group of sensations, 

105 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

but is some sort of reaction of consciousness as a 
whole upon the occasion of the stimulus. This 
reaction results in the appearance of a mental 
state that is not merely compounded from the 
sensations themselves. In many cases it is 
nothing at all like them, but is some mental 
construction that in the past has been found 
best to fit the particular set of circumstances. 
This mental construction we shall not go far 
wrong in describing as a type or standard 
that develops gradually in consciousness as a 
result of the manifold experiences of the indi- 
vidual. In our old instance we see the rectan- 
gular table top where there is on the retina 
only the rhomboid. We see the rectangle be- 
cause experience teaches that if we are to use 
the table in any way we succeed in our purpose 
if we treat it as a square ; we fail if we assume 
that the angles are oblique. It fits into what 
we know as square corners, it will not fit either 
obtuse or acute angle spaces. We overlook 
the shadows cast by the retinal blood vessels 
because we have learned that the objects are to 
be dissociated from this accompaniment of 
all observations. The meaning then is the 
retinal image minus the blood vessels, and we 
can perceive the blood vessels now only by 

106 



JUDGMENT 

taking somewhat elaborate precautions. In 
every case the perception is something that 
on the basis of numerous tests will fit in 
with and serve to explain the disconnected dis- 
crete experiences. We are not conscious of the 
discrete experiences themselves. We do not 
see the retinal blood vessels and then by a more 
or less elaborate process of reasoning decide 
that they are not real. They are no more in 
our consciousness in ordinary vision than are 
the canals on Mars as we look with the naked 
eye. We do not first get the crude image and 
then standardize and correct it; we see the 
thing as all our experience up to the present 
moment tells us it would appear were we look- 
ing under the most favorable conditions. 

In the light of these facts, if we assume that 
the given is in consciousness in advance of the 
meaning, it is not possible to hold that judg- 
ment is the attribution of meaning to the given. 
On the contrary meaning makes its appearance 
at once, and the so-called given, the discrete 
sense process, is never in consciousness except 
as it is itself made a meaning to explain con- 
sciousness. What is seen is always the 
predicate of the judgment in the terms of the 
definition in question; the subject is for us non- 
107 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

existent. The process of ascribing meaning is 
the process of entering consciousness. The 
type must appear when anything makes its real 
appearance in the mind. To judge and to per- 
ceive become on this definition identical terms, 
so far as the structural relations of the terms 
are concerned. 

There is much more in common between the 
perception process as thus defined and the judg- 
ment process of Bradley and Bosanquet than 
there is common to it and the entrance to con- 
sciousness of Mill, or at least in the psychology 
that they attribute to Mill. There is no reason 
why we should not take the denotation rather 
than the connotation of their term, and identify 
the perception process with their judgment. 
Both, then, apply to the entrance of a stimulus 
or its concomitant to consciousness. In neither 
does anything intervene between the physical 
or physiological and the appreciation of the 
type, fully interpreted. With this agreement 
upon the definition and its application, there is 
nothing left but to turn to examine the condi- 
tions antecedent to the judgment. These are 
to be found in the context and the purpose that 
dominates the individual at the moment. How 
we shall interpret anything, what meaning we 

108 



JUDGMENT 

shall attach to it, depends upon the context into 
which the entering impression is to be received. 
Whether an object be one thing or another de- 
pends not upon itself, but upon the way it is 
to be used in the consciousness of the moment. 
Of the word that I write I see one meaning in 
one connection, another in a different connec- 
tion. Sometimes I am not concerned with the 
use or meaning of the word at all but with how 
to spell it or whether it will be legible when I 
return to it at another time. In the way we 
have been looking at the matter there are a 
large number of types available at any mo- 
ment, and we apply now one, now another to 
the stimulus that presents itself. The result- 
ing consciousness is quite as largely made up 
of the type as of the occasion that calls out 
the type. The occasion supplies the cue, the 
type the material that is perceived, and the 
problem that is concerning consciousness at the 
moment, the mental context, serves to select 
the meaning that shall be aroused on that occa- 
sion. When we were discussing the nature of 
meaning we were somewhat troubled to deter- 
mine its relation to the particular; now when 
discussing the concrete particular we have great 
difficulty, in fact are compelled to admit the im- 

109 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

possibility, of keeping it distinct from the type, 
the meaning. 

What is essential to the judgment then on 
this first definition is the arousal of the type 
on the occasion of the stimulus, and the selec- 
tion of some type in harmony with the momen- 
tary set of consciousness, the problem that is 
before it at the moment. These elements we 
shall find involved in some degree and with 
appropriate changes in all of the other proc- 
esses that are designated as judgment. The 
one exception is perhaps the definition of Bren- 
tano that makes judgment the equivalent of 
accepting any statement or object as true or 
real. Even with this definition however there 
are many points of similarity. In the first 
place belief attaches to practically every per- 
ception at the moment that it becomes a per- 
ception. Acceptance and rejection are inevi- 
table when anything is experienced. It is part 
of the process of entering consciousness. 
Brentano, too, was one of the first men to assert 
that the judgment was not made up of two 
parts, but was always single. The operation 
of judgment involved but one term ; there was 
no necessity in the mind of himself and his 
school to put things together in order to obtain 

110 



JUDGMENT 

the judgment. In this their definition would 
be identical with the one we have been con- 
sidering, or at least with the interpretation 
we have given to the definition of the neo-He- 
gelians. Again, it has been shown that belief 
arises from the interaction of the accumulated 
results of experience with the interpretation 
that is being made at the moment. Meaning, 
too, has been described as a process that has 
grown out of experience, and has its valid- 
ity only in so far as it represents experiences, 
past as well as present. Both might be de- 
scribed as common results of interacting ex- 
periences expressed in a single process or 
operation. In at least three points there is 
something in common between belief or its 
acquirement, and the ascription of meaning. 
The only point at which it is necessary to em- 
phasize the difference between the two proc- 
esses is in taking issue with Brentano that an 
experience might be conscious and be neither 
affirmed nor denied; that it is possible to hold 
an entering impression in a psychological 
purgatory before it is passed upon and either 
accepted or rejected. We were led to believe 
that acceptance or rejection is immediate, and 
one of the conditions of entering conscious- 
Ill 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OP REASONING 

ness. If we are permitted to make this change 
m his statement which it will be recalled is the 
same change or an analogous one to that made 
in the definition of Bradley with reference to 
meaning, the two definitions become identical 
except for a difference in emphasis. Both have 
reference to a process that takes place at the 
moment of entrance to consciousness, both by 
implication have but a single cognitive element 
involved in the judgment, and both are the out- 
come of the reaction of knowledge as a whole 
upon the entering element. The difference lies 
in the characteristic of the entrance to con- 
sciousness that each emphasizes. One consid- 
ers merely the truth or falsity, the other the 
essential quality of the resulting impression. 
If one must choose between the two, there is no 
doubt that the interpretation put upon the en- 
tering impression is more important for logic 
than the mere acceptance or rejection of the 
object or statement, important as that is. 
While then there is agreement between the two 
definitions on many essential points, it seems 
that the definition as the application of mean- 
ing covers more of the aspects that are essential 
for logic than does Brentano's definition in 
terms of belief. 

112 



JUDGMENT 

The other two definitions that would make 
judgment comparison and that would make 
it evaluation have much in common with the 
definition of judgment as ascription of mean- 
ing. It might seem at first sight that the judg- 
ment of comparison involves at least two terms 
and in so far there is an immediate disparity 
between the two. In fact, this is the tacit 
assumption of many logicians, ancient and mod- 
ern. As a matter of fact, however, modern 
psychological investigation seems unanimous in 
the statement that there is but one act in the 
process of comparison, and that there need be 
but one term explicitly in consciousness. When 
one compares, consciousness is not of two ele- 
ments as discrete, but of one whole made up 
of two parts. Comparison arises whenever 
two objects are united in a single experience, 
and are regarded in the light of the question 
which is heavier, lighter, or what not. When 
an object is presented that can be re- 
garded as made up of parts and that object is 
viewed with reference to any quality of those 
two parts, comparison results. It is like the 
attachment of meaning in two important re- 
spects. First, that the result of the comparison 
is stated in the form of a typical difference; 

113 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

second, that the difference recognized is de- 
pendent upon the purpose. "We never express 
in the judgment the results of comparisons that 
have not proved important in practice. They 
are judged with reference only to size or in- 
tensity, duration or quality, they are compared 
in those ways alone that have proved effective 
in the practical ordering of our world. These 
ways of comparing again have established re- 
sults that are schematized or standardized in 
relations that are almost as firmly established 
as are the types of things or of persons. Which 
one of the many ways in which two objects may 
be compared is selected in terms of the imme- 
diate needs or interests? Two lines will be 
compared at one time with reference to their 
length, at another with reference to thickness 
or brightness or some other quality. Only the 
comparison results that is valuable at the par- 
ticular moment. In this sense the comparison, 
like the meaning, is an expression not of the 
two elements, but of the whole consciousness of 
the moment. Again the consciousness of dif- 
ference is immediate. Nothing intervenes be- 
tween the entrance of the two objects and the 
attachment of the result of the comparison. 
They may not be appreciated in any other way 

114 



JUDGMENT 

than as just brighter, or larger, or whatever 
the result of the comparison may be. In its 
mechanism comparison is on exactly the same 
level as the appreciation of any other mean- 
ing. We may go so far as to say that when two 
objects are compared, they become, in the proc- 
ess of comparison, not two objects but one and 
that the comparison is the attachment of a 
meaning to this single object in just the same 
way that appreciation of its color, or the appre- 
ciation that it is an object of one kind not 
another is the attachment of meaning. The 
resulting concept is in a degree different from 
others in that according to Woodworth the con- 
tent of the concept of relation is difficult to 
make out. But as we have seen in the discus- 
sion of the concept, deficiency in content is not 
fatal to the concept. In many cases, the con- 
cept seems to fulfill its function with little or no 
content. The fact of interconnection is the 
essential element, and this the relation has in 
full measure. 

The experiments on comparison already men- 
tioned still farther reduce the essentials of the 
process. It will be recalled that when some 
time has elapsed between the presentation of 
the first and the second of two things to be 

115 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

compared, it is not necessary that the first be 
recalled in order that the comparison result 
or even that it be accurate. If one has the 
intention of making the comparison, the concept 
of relation is aroused on the basis of the pres- 
ence of the one that is presented, without any 
representation of the first in sensory terms. 
The purpose or attitude in this case seems to 
bridge the gap of time and to call out the con- 
cept of relation without definite consciousness 
of the first member of the pair. What the 
nervous basis of the process may be, we do not 
know. Here too we get another effect of the 
type or standard similar to that which it has 
in the more usual forms. The comparison is 
mediate between the first and the standard, 
and the second and the standard; it is not a 
direct comparison. The result of the two com- 
parisons and the third that combines them is 
immediate, no extra time is required for the 
triple act. The upshot of the study of the re- 
sults of comparison is that comparison, like the 
attachment of meaning is a single process, and 
even ordinarily a process that in strictness in- 
volves but a single object. 

The tendency to regard comparison and re- 
lated processes as made up of more than a 

116 



JUDGMENT 

single term has led to a large amount of con- 
fusion in the logical discussions, and, I think, 
leads to the classification as inferences of many 
processes that are really judgments in our sense 
and still more certainly not inferences in the 
accepted definition of the logicians. Thus 
Bradley has a long discussion of space relations 
such as that "if A is to the left of B and C to 
the right of B, then C must be to the right 
of A." Bradley assumes that the first state- 
ments are in some way the premises from which 
the final statement is established as a conclu- 
sion. This we shall see does not at all agree 
with any of the interpretations of the nature 
of the premises that are ordinarily given, or 
that may be easily given to the syllogism. The 
first term is in no sense a major premise with 
the second subordinate to it. It is not a uni- 
versal statement or even a general statement. 
We are not prepared to bring forward all of 
the reasons for regarding it as of a different 
sort from the relations involved in the syllo- 
gism, but can, I think, show that it is really 
of the same nature as the judgment which we 
have been treating. The first two terms merely 
serve to define the spatial conditions that would 
be ordinarily presented to consciousness at a 

117 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

single glance. As we look at an actual series 
of points arranged as these are, the relation 
of A and C would be appreciated at once. 
When the relation of A and B, and of C and B, 
are described, we are enabled to picture or to 
appreciate conceptually the relation that A and 
C have in the same immediate way that we ap- 
preciate the relation of two points that are 
directly seen. The process is exactly on a level 
with a descriptive narrative that presents to us 
in concrete form the characteristics of two per- 
sons and permits us to compare them with refer- 
ence to some one characteristic on the basis of the 
description. We are then in no sense inferring 
a certain conclusion from the description of the 
series of acts ; we are interpreting them on the 
basis of a description that takes the place, for 
us, of immediate observation. There are many 
similarities between such a process of compari- 
son and the one involved in our appreciation of 
the relation in space between two points when 
the relation of each to the common third point 
is stated. Bradley himself recognizes the fact 
that there is no major premise in such syllo- 
gisms or statements. The major he would sup- 
ply is some statement to the effect that "the 
nature of space is such that A is to right of 

118 



JUDGMENT 

C when," etc. The nature of space is implied 
in our interpretation of the relation; but this 
would be implied in the same way that our 
earlier and classified knowledge is concerned 
in making any judgment, in the attachment of 
any meaning. There is no express formula- 
tion that gives warrant for the relation and this 
is necessary if we are to have the syllogism. 

It is the same misinterpretation of the nature 
of space and intensive relations that detracts 
from the otherwise valuable work of Storring 
on the process of inference that has been pub- 
lished recently. 1 Storring devotes many pages 
to the description of the processes that are in- 
volved in deciding what the relations of two 
points or intensities are to each other from 
statements of other relations of the same points 
or intensities. His results are exactly what 
one would expect from the other work that has 
been done on the nature of comparison. The 
essential elements in the process are the atti- 
tude that is taken toward the problem; and the 
resulting statement, the reference of the rela- 
tion to its appropriate concept or type. As in 

i Storring: Experimentelle Untersuehungen iiber einfache 
Schlussprocesse. Archiv fur die gesammte Psychologie, Vol. 11, 
p. 1. 

9 119 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

other forms of comparison there is little appre- 
ciation of the mediating process. In some cases 
the relations that are described are pictured, 
in others, particularly after practice, even the 
visualizing disappears and the concept that re- 
sults is the only consciousness that is involved 
in the entire process. These results make 
much more for than against the statement that 
we have to deal in all such processes not with 
an inference, as the author supposes, but with 
a process of interpretation that is in some cases 
a direct or mediate comparison, in others an 
interpretation of a relation that is made on the 
basis of a preliminary description. This in- 
terpretation or appreciation is made on the 
same warrant and by the same methods as the 
ordinary comparison. That we have several 
sentences or statements involved is due to the 
fact that it is necessary to employ several words 
to take the place of what is ordinarily given in 
immediate presentation. Here, too, we have 
judgment as a process of referring entering 
processes to concepts. 

Comparison and the judgments of relation in 
general, then, are in three respects closely sim- 
ilar to the ascription of meaning. (1) The sort 
of relation that is appreciated is determined 

120 



JUDGMENT 

by the mental context, the momentary purpose. 
This decides in what respect the processes are 
to be compared, or what relation is to be 
affirmed to exist between them. (2) The process 
of comparison is always a single act, no matter 
how many elements may be concerned, and in 
many instances that seem to involve several 
elements all are really combined into one at the 
moment the comparison is made. (3) The result 
of the process is the taking over of the relation 
or of the elements to be considered into a pre- 
determined conceptual relation, a relation that 
stands to the particular relation considered in 
very much the same way that the concept of a 
thing stands to the particular thing. The only 
difference that distinguishes this process from 
the ascription of meaning is that the material 
involved may, from other points of view than 
that which prevails at the moment of compar- 
ing, be regarded as made up of two or more 
elements rather than of one. The similarities 
are certainly more numerous and more impor- 
tant than the differences. 

The fourth process that we must consider, 
the process of evaluation, is one that has come 
into marked prominence in very recent years. 
It is particularly desirable that it be brought 

121 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

into harmony with the other forms because of 
the tendency to make it the basis of an entirely 
distinct process of reasoning, to ground upon 
it, in fact, an entirely distinct discipline. It 
has struck many of the modern writers that 
there are certain important conclusions which 
do not fall within the range of the ordinary 
logic and which do not find their explanation 
in the principles of any of the philosophical 
sciences. In consequence a foundation has 
been sought for them in the feelings or in other 
sources not usually taken into account in logic 
or in psychology, in the processes ordinarily 
regarded as the basis of cognitive knowledge. 
More ultimate apparently than the materials 
usually considered in logic are the decisions as 
to what we shall consider fundamentally desir- 
able, is our choice of the ultimate ends of life 
towards which we shall strive, and of the evils 
that we shall flee. Not only do we pass these 
judgments of value upon remote and abstract 
goods and ends, but we are constantly deciding 
on little if any rational ground that certain 
things are to be chosen, others to be abjured. 
One can apparently say only that the decision 
is made and affirmed, often with great emphasis 
and warmth; the grounds are not capable of 

122 



JUDGMENT 

statement in the ordinary terms. These asser- 
tions must be accepted as true; they are 
accepted as true in the most important matters 
of life. The only question is as to their justifi- 
cation. Why are they made? How are they 
true? 

Two alternatives are open. The one most 
favored at present, apparently, is to seek to 
establish on them a new and independent sort 
of truth, or at least a new and independent 
source of truth. This is open to the objection 
that it would complicate all explanation and 
make impossible any unification of the kinds 
of knowledge. It would have the disadvantage, 
too, of making all, or at least by far the greater 
part, of our knowledge go back for its ultimate 
guarantee to vague feeling processes. This 
disadvantage is all the greater and the course 
the more lamentable because up to the present 
there is a tendency to make a mystery of the 
whole matter, to assert that we must accept 
these results without reason and without any 
hope of discovering a reason. In consequence 
anything that anyone asserts to be true must 
be true for him and there is no means of con- 
testing its truth. All that can be done is to 
assert the negative with greater warmth than 

123 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

was shown in his assertion of the original 
affirmative. All major premises of formal 
logic would go back ultimately to grounds of 
this kind, and most appreciations that could 
not be derived syllogistically would depend im- 
mediately upon determinations of the sort we 
are considering. If, then, feeling processes 
alone determine evaluation they establish the 
truth of most of the important facts of life. 

The other alternative is to take these some- 
what vague justifications over into our logic. 
Admit that ultimately large and important 
fields of knowledge depend upon them and then 
do the best that we can to trace the conditions 
and reasons for the judgments to their sources 
wherever we may find them. The alternatives 
present themselves of letting feeling or other 
vague processes swallow up the cognitive, or to 
widen our logical and psychological system to 
include the vaguer kinds of knowledge, or the 
knowledge that has a less definite warrant. We 
have already gone a considerable distance in 
the latter direction in the discussion of the na- 
ture of belief. There we found that the war- 
rant for the acceptance or rejection of any 
object or statement is to be found in the earlier 
experience in the widest sense of the term, and 

124 



JUDGMENT 

that but a small number of the sources of the 
belief in anything or by any person are open 
to observation at any time. The process of 
evaluation may very well rest upon similar 
grounds. Our problem in this connection is to 
trace the mechanism by which we attain to such 
evaluations, with particular reference to its 
similarity to the other forms of judgment. 

The process of evaluation shows at least two 
evidences of having some close dependence 
upon experience. In the first place the stand- 
ard changes with experience. What is good for 
one man is bad for another. My luxuries may 
be your necessities, my virtues may be your 
vices. The luxuries of one period of life may 
become the necessities of a later period. Sums 
of money that are of large moment to the child 
are of insignificance, or may be, to the adult. 
Changes of standards of living and of morality 
are constantly seen both in the individual and 
in society. Secondly, the kind of evaluation 
depends very definitely and clearly upon the 
more immediate experience at the moment the 
evaluation is made. Everything may be evalu- 
ated, as it may be compared, in a very large 
number of ways. The evaluation is always 
with tacit reference to the context. A man may 

125 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

be a good man from the point of view of the 
judge and a bad man in the estimation of the 
world at large. He may be a good man when 
judged from the standpoint of a political boss 
when evaluated in reference to his candidacy 
for an office, and a bad man when evaluated by 
the voter. He may be a good man when spoken 
of in connection with an athletic contest and 
not a good one when considered from the point 
of view of academic scholarship. Similar dif- 
ferences in judgment with the variations in the 
standard of reference may be traced in every 
object at any moment. There is probably noth- 
ing that can be judged in one way alone, and in 
consequence, nothing upon which only one value 
can be set. The evaluation of any object will 
change slowly with the change in the experi- 
ence of the individual or of a community; it 
will change almost instantly as it presents itself 
from different points of view or in different 
contexts. 

Values then are not fixed once and for all, 
but are growing and changing with growth and 
change in experience. While one can not easily 
go behind the value that is set upon anything 
by an individual and even more truly can not 
go behind the value that is set upon an act 

126 



JUDGMENT 

or object by a community or race, it is never- 
theless possible to point out that these stand- 
ards are not all fixed. They belong to the tran- 
sient empirical realm, not to the realm of eternal 
verities. One may even hope to be able to 
change the values of a people by pointing out 
the disadvantages in practice that inhere in 
customs long established, and one can 
more certainly prophesy that even the most 
definitely established values may change, unless 
they happen to be rooted in the instincts of the 
race, or have other permanent warrant in the 
nature of man or the world. A study of the 
shift of values as represented in money can be 
empirically made in connection with any com- 
modity or with a stock on the exchanges. 
These changes show, as is clear to anyone, the 
influence of new experiences in connection with 
that, value, the effect of new facts that are no 
more easy to describe than to say that they 
relate to popular sentiment. The choice of 
fundamental ways of living seems to be deter- 
mined in the same immediate way and to be 
determined when disturbed by factors that are 
as little open to investigation although they too 
would probably be traceable either to instincts 
or to the influence of some chance environ- 

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

mental factor, or, what is more probable, to a 
combination of both. Observation of individ- 
uals who are suddenly called upon to readjust 
the habits and standards of a lifetime through 
some change in their material possessions shows 
how largely the common standards of comfort 
and extravagance are the outgrowth of long 
experience. It is probable from my own lim- 
ited observation that individuals who suddenly 
rise from poverty to affluence either refuse to 
give over the old standards, or they are for a 
considerable time altogether without standards. 
In the one case the individual is characterized 
as a miser because his old standards of economy 
and extravagance are entirely out of harmony 
with his new conditions, or else he becomes a 
profligate and spendthrift with no idea what- 
soever as to how far his new income will permit 
him to indulge his desires. In either case it is 
only with the lapse of considerable time and 
through the influence of many experiences that 
a new set of standards develops and the man 
learns to use his money. Similar dependence 
of moral standards upon experience is evi- 
denced by the periods of sudden change in social 
organization. Social catastrophes like the 
French Eevolution bring with them the disap- 

128 



JUDGMENT 

pearance of all moral standards and a resulting 
moral chaos. Again time and experience alone 
will avail for the development of new values on 
a somewhat stable basis. The temporary in- 
competence of judgment that follows the change 
of residence between countries of different civ- 
ilizations or of different monetary units, to- 
gether with the relatively slow adjustments to 
the new conditions, are both further evidence 
of the influence of experience in the develop- 
ment of what often seem to be ultimate stand- 
ards of moral and material values. 

It is true that processes very similar to feel- 
ings are effective in the establishment of values 
even in the most important of our practical as 
well as in our aesthetic life. Instincts undoubt- 
edly play a considerable part and accumulated 
experience even a larger part. Values like feel- 
ings change, too, if slowly, and the course of 
the change depends upon the nature of the 
experience to which the race or the individual 
may be subjected. This dependence upon ex- 
perience is common to evaluation and belief, as 
well as to evaluations and feelings and it seems 
more satisfactory on the whole to bring the 
process into relation with belief than with feel- 
ing. Belief is equally capable of accounting for 

129 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

the immediacy of the process, and offers a more 
adequate explanation of its sources. This 
classification will serve, too, to bring it into 
relation with the other cognitive processes, 
rather than leave it with a different warrant 
from that which suffices for the other cognitive 
states. It does not do injustice to the vague- 
ness of the guarantees of the knowledge, but it 
makes that vagueness and apparent immediacy 
apologetic rather than defiant. The attitude 
toward reasoning of the ordinary sort is not, 
"This is my dictum; what right have you to 
examine me?" but it is, "I can not avoid com- 
ing to this conclusion, I believe it to be true, 
but I am sorry to say that the warrant for its 
existence can not be stated, or even traced 
through the mass of experience from which I 
believe it to be derived." One might push the 
position a step farther, and add, "If the belief 
process were carefully examined, I have no 
doubt it would be found that belief, too, is in 
the same position." 

Two results are apparent from the examina- 
tion of the process of evaluation. The process 
of evaluation is essentially a process of com- 
paring the given presentation with a standard. 
Secondly, the standard with which the compari- 

130 



JUDGMENT 

son is made has developed from experience, is 
not independent of it. At the same time the 
standard at the moment of judging is for 
the individual ultimate and immediate ; it gives 
no evidence of its derivation from and through 
experience. We have had occasion to indicate 
that it is similar in its warrant to belief if not 
merely a subhead under belief. It is also, how- 
ever, closely related to two of the forms of the 
judgment that have already been considered. 
It has two characteristics in common with the 
judgment processes we have discussed. It is 
similar to the ascription of meaning in that the 
developed type or standard is called out at 
the moment evaluation is made, which may be 
at the moment that the object enters conscious- 
ness. It differs from this ascription of mean- 
ing only in that the type does not replace the 
particular, but serves merely to give it value. 
It is similar again in so far as the evaluation 
is immediate when the purpose of evaluation 
is present. It need not be true that the object 
is present as a meaning first and then evaluated. 
More frequently when presented, the object is 
evaluated and perceived at the same moment. 
Evaluation is also a single operation, with no 
explicit presence of any thing, not even of the 

131 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

standard that serves to give it value. If evalu- 
ation has a touch of the reference to type that 
is characteristic of the ascription of meaning, 
it is similar to the judgment of comparison in 
view of the fact that it involves comparison 
with that type. It may be brought into still 
closer relation to the judgment of comparison 
if the results of the investigations of recogni- 
tion by Lehmann and others are recalled. It 
will be remembered that in the comparison of 
two qualities presented at different times the 
comparison is ordinarily not of one with the 
other, but of each with a standard. We might 
say that the process is an evaluation of each 
and then a comparison of the evaluations rather 
than a direct comparison. The standard with 
which each is evaluated is probably closely re- 
lated to the standard of absolute evaluation. 
It comes to seem absolute from frequent use. 
In fact, in Lehmann 's investigation of the color 
recognition it was, if we may trust the intro- 
spection of the observers, the absolute standard 
that was brought into play. In general, the 
process of evaluation may be said to be inter- 
mediate between the judgment as ascription of 
meaning, and the judgment as comparison. It 
has certain elements that are common to each 

132 



JUDGMENT 

of them. No element is involved in it that is 
entirely unfamiliar to the other two. 

The mechanism of evaluation is also similar 
in every respect to the mechanism of the other 
forms of judgment. As we have seen, the men- 
tal antecedents of the process are identical with 
the mental antecedents of ascription of mean- 
ing. Just as the context and the purpose of 
the moment determine what type shall be 
called out by the object as it enters, what mean- 
ing shall be ascribed to it, so here the purpose 
and context determine what value shall be 
placed upon it, with which of the many appo- 
site standards it may be compared. The proc- 
ess is not ordinarily accompanied by any pecul- 
iar psychological experience. The purpose is 
ordinarily vaguely conscious and the result is 
given some fairly distinct sort of representa- 
tion in some of the concepts of value, but noth- 
ing else is apparent. You decide that a paint- 
ing is valuable or worthless immediately. 
Even the standard in this case is not definitely 
ideated. In many cases it would be very diffi- 
cult to give any ideational form to the standard. 
The essentials here as everywhere are the pur- 
pose in observation and the resulting estimate. 
Nothing much intervenes. The standard, while 

133 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

essential to the process, does not appear in the 
foreground of the conscious life. This, the 
most ancient and frequent use of the term judg- 
ment, shows many points in common with the 
others that have grown up since and are com- 
mon in popular or technical use. 

We can bring together the results of this ex- 
amination in the statement that the process of 
judging is always simple, the results of the 
judgment are always to be found in a concept 
or a type, the direction of the judgment is al- 
ways in terms of the momentary context or 
purpose. All forms of judgment are alike, too, 
in that their occasion is furnished by some 
stimulus. All begin in some stimulus and end 
in a meaning or concept. The concept alone is 
actually conscious. The meaning that is added 
may be a type of the simple kind that makes 
the object, it may be a statement of relative in- 
tensity between different parts of the total, or 
it may be an appreciation of the value of the 
presented with reference to some established 
standard. In any case it is the reception of 
a presented stimulus into the unified experience. 
This reception first gives the stimulus con- 
sciousness, first permits it to become a psychical 
somewhat rather than a mere physical stimulus. 

134 



JUDGMENT 

The type of the three forms of judgment is 
susceptible of a single statement as the ascrip- 
tion of meaning to the presented. Sometimes 
the meaning is a simple concept or type, some- 
times it is a typical relation, sometimes a type 
or concept of value. It is always some type 
that has developed out of experience to unify 
experience. It is always added immediately 
and the entering impression is nothing con- 
scious until it has been added. As the result 
of interpretation is determined by remote ex- 
perience, the particular course or sort of inter- 
pretation is determined by immediate experi- 
ence, by the context and the purpose of the 
thinking at the moment. 

If these three forms of judgment can be 
brought under a single head, it is also possible 
to show that the judgment as affirmation or be- 
lief of Brentano, accepted as the definition of 
judgment by Baldwin, also, with some reserva- 
tions, has the same general character, the same 
warrant and the same occasion. If the ascrip- 
tion of meaning is an expression of ordered 
experience in its widest relations, belief is 
another expression of the same experience ap- 
plied to the same object at the moment of enter- 
ing consciousness. We believe at the same 
10 135 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

time that we interpret and for the same reasons, 
because experience as a whole is guiding the 
interpretation. The only question is as to 
which of the two outcomes of the process are 
to be regarded as more important, the content 
or the belief that attaches to the content. Per- 
sonally, I am inclined to prefer the content and 
to define judgment as the ascription of meaning 
to the presented, or as the reception of the 
entering impression into the organized con- 
sciousness. 



CHAPTER V 

JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

It has been possible to combine in a single 
definition the uses of judgment prevalent in 
popular language and that generally accepted 
by modern logic. But the definition of formal 
logic that has been accepted for so many ages 
certainly will not fall readily into the same 
class. For formal logic, the judgment was al- 
ways made up of two elements that were com- 
bined into a single somewhat in the act of judg- 
ing. Two concepts, two things, were in some 
way related. It did not deal with a single con- 
cept or a single act. The modern logician has 
attempted to apply his definition to the process 
designated judgment by the scholastic, by as- 
suming that the subject represented the given 
before it was appreciated; the predicate the 
meaning that was attached to it, the type to 
which it was referred. But we have seen that 
the bare given is not in consciousness, that to 
become conscious the meaning must be attached. 

137 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

Evidently this simple device will not serve to 
make the definition of the modern logician ap- 
plicable to the process designated judgment by 
formal logic. 

As a preliminary to harmonizing the defini- 
tions, we must see that the problem of the logi- 
cian and his method of attacking the problem 
are both essentially different from our own. 
We have been considering the actual mental 
operation, the logician considers the result as it 
is expressed in language. This, too, he treats 
altogether apart from its context. He consid- 
ers not what the speaker actually did mean by 
his statement in the connection in which it was 
given, but what the sentence might mean as it 
stands out of its context. Each of these differ- 
ent points of view gives different methods of ap- 
proaching the problem, of determining how the 
judgment as ascription of meaning is related 
to the judgment as combination of subject and 
predicate. The first problem would be, "What 
is the psychological relation between what is 
denoted by the subject and by the predicate?" 
The second is, "How is that judgment ex- 
pressed in language 1 ' ' 

To attack the first problem we must put our- 
selves at the point of view of the logician and 

138 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

consider the judgment out of its setting as just 
two words or terms joined by the copula. The 
question for him was if one has just this state- 
ment and nothing else, what can one imagine 
the copula or the copulation to do for the terms. 
This is to omit all consideration of the mental 
operation that gave rise to the connection and 
to take no account of the purpose that found 
its fulfillment in the judgment. If we take this 
point of view and ask how, given a dead judg- 
ment made of subject and predicate, the two 
may be conceived as connected, we find that 
there are a large number of widely divergent 
theories. The diversity is in part due to the 
fact that the different theorists were dealing 
with different kinds of judgment indiscrimi- 
nately and that all were brought under one 
general head while in reality they belonged in 
a number of different classes. Some one sort 
of connection which had application to but one 
alone was assumed to be true for all alike. 
Some attempted to bring the judgment under 
the head of a mathematical relation, others to 
connect it with psychological operations. Dif- 
fering views of the nature of the concept as 
well as different psychological theories are re- 
flected in the theories of the judgment, and each 

139 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

in consequence tends to be true for the par- 
ticular phase of the judgment or kind of judg- 
ment of which the theorist was thinking, but it 
will not hold of all judgments or of all aspects 
of any judgment. Before we can hope to har- 
monize them or to do justice to the judgment as 
expressed in words we must distinguish the dif- 
ferent classes and discuss each separately. 

Some of the oldest and simplest may be 
grouped together in the statement that the 
judgment asserted some relation between sub- 
ject and predicate. The most familiar of these 
is the statement of the mathematical logicians 
that the "is" is a sign of equality. Similarity 
or partial identity might be brought under the 
same head. Such judgments as "A" is equal 
to "B," or "A" is similar to "B" would then 
be typical of all predication. These are most 
closely related to the psychological judgment 
with which we have been dealing up to this 
point. In fact we might agree that they are 
phases of the judgment of comparison that were 
discussed in the last chapter. The only objec- 
tion that we could make to the ordinary treat- 
ment is that psychologically the judgment of 
comparison is one operation, not two, or at the 
very least the process of predication is not 

140 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

properly represented by the division of the 
total as expressed in words. Psychologically 
when processes are compared the two objects 
form a unit and the relation is added to them. 
In the attitude of the moment the distinction 
between the two terms is not actually recog- 
nized and they fuse for the purpose in hand 
into a single whole. The translation into lan- 
guage that would most accurately represent the 
mental operation would be "A" and "B" are 
equal or similar or identical. That the judg- 
ment as ordinarily expressed makes "A" the 
subject, "B" the predicate is due to the vaga- 
ries of language not to the nature of the mental 
operation. As we have pointed out, it is more 
than likely that the two elements compared are 
not in consciousness as distinct objects before 
or even after the comparison, but that they 
first come to consciousness as "A" and "B" 
equal. When one looks with that question in 
mind, the appreciation is of the equality, as a 
single mental content rather than a series of 
mental processes, first "A," then "B," then 
their equality. All judgments of relation in 
space and time, like all comparisons in what- 
ever respect, fall under this same classification, 
as has been pointed out in detail, and I hope 

141 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

made clear, in the earlier connection. The du- 
plicity in this whole group of judgments is 
linguistic only; the mental operation is single. 
The mental operation is one of the types of 
judgment that has already found a place in the 
psychological discussion. 

Not only is the psychological operation in 
ascribing equality to two objects not what lan- 
guage represents it to be, but not all forms of 
predication can be brought under this head. 
When we assert in the judgment of perception 
that "a tree is green," or in a general judgment 
that "man is mortal," we very evidently have 
no intention of asserting that the tree is equiva- 
lent to greenness or that the two are similar 
or even that man and mortality are in part 
identical. The same holds of the judgments of 
naming, "that is a tree," and of a great many 
other sorts of predication. Evidently other 
classifications must be considered before we can 
dispose of these various judgments. 

A second definition of judgment would be 
more appropriate here. This is the group that 
makes the subject and predicate each a con- 
cept and endeavors to interrelate the concepts 
in some more or less arbitrary fashion. Here 
falls the relation of subsumption of Euler, the 

142 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

relation of substance and attribute, with the 
related if not identical theories that the judg- 
ment is a process of classification of some sort 
or other. This entire group assumes two re- 
lations that are not in harmony with the psycho- 
logical operation. In the first place most actual 
thinking has reference not to all the meanings 
of the concept, but to a restricted few. The 
concept as Euler uses the term is the sum of 
all the meanings that might attach to the term 
or object, includes all of the ways in which 
it could be appreciated. When we use the term, 
we think of but one or a very few of the 
aspects of the thing, the others are for the mo- 
ment as if non-existent. Iron in the sense it 
is used by Euler is the sum of its physical, 
chemical and physiological qualities. It is 
magnetic, has a certain resistance to the electric 
current, has a certain weight, color, chemical 
affinities, atomic weight, and indefinite other 
properties or attributes. Every interpretation 
or appreciation of iron that had ever been made 
might be regarded as an attribute or quality of 
the iron. Another concept might be treated in 
the same way. Metal would have a smaller 
number of ways in which it might be appreci- 
ated, but more objects might be appreciated in 

143 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

that way. The process of judging would con- 
sist, then, in asserting that all of the attributes 
that attach to the more general attach also to 
the less general, or that all objects that could 
be put into a more particular class could also 
be brought under a concept with fewer attri- 
butes. A concept in this use is the sum of the 
meanings that could be attached. Where the 
concept is regarded as an object it would be the 
sum of all the judgments, in our sense, that 
might be made concerning it. While conceiv- 
ably this might be accepted, it is none the 
less true that but few of these separate 
meanings play any part in the actual judgment. 
When considering iron for any practical pur- 
pose one is concerned only with relevant quali- 
ties of the iron. When making a magnet only 
the magnetic properties need be considered, not 
the fact that it may have some therapeutic 
qualities, or even that it has a certain chemical 
valence. In practice one is never concerned 
with all the attributes that the logician ascribes 
to iron. Even when the object of the moment 
is to give a scientific classification, no account 
can be taken in any one system of all the prop- 
erties. The physicist would classify in one 
way, the chemist in another, the pharmacologist 

144 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

in a third way. The group into which a sub- 
stance falls or at least its place in the group, 
depends upon the purpose of the classification 
and the context at the moment. The statement 
that predication is a process of subsumption in 
which all the attributes must be considered, and 
all are of equal value, would be true only when 
the purpose of judging were to classify the 
object, and then would be true only with limi- 
tations. Even the process of classification in- 
volves prejudice of one kind and another. No 
single classification can arrange in an orderly 
way all of the qualities of any object, even if 
the purpose be merely to classify. A system- 
atic Zoology, for example, can arrange animals 
only with reference to an orderly classification 
of structural features. It must omit functions 
so far as function and structure do not run 
parallel, it must certainly omit classification 
according to edibility and many other practical 
aspects with reference to which the popular 
mind would be much more ready to arrange 
them. Again, then, we have in the judgment 
of subsumption, or ascription of attributes, a 
form of the judgment that represents one class 
of judgments, the judgments of classification, 
fairly well, but which will not apply to judg- 

145 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

merits of relation or to the judgment of percep- 
tion. Even the judgments of classification are 
never made in the impartial way that the defi- 
nition in question implies, but are always col- 
ored by the immediate purpose of the man who 
is classifying. They mean at once more and 
less. 

Brentano and his school interpret the spoken 
form to assert mere existence or belief. ' * The 
tree is green" is translated by them into "the 
green tree is," — it asserts belief in the exist- 
ence of the green tree. While there can be no 
doubt that belief in the existence of the objects 
is involved in the judgment process, there can 
also be no doubt that much more than that is 
involved, that the belief is merely incidental to 
the assertion in question, as it is to the appre- 
ciation or interpretation of anything. Again 
we have a definition that makes a single aspect 
of the judging process take the place of the 
entire process. Many of the psychological defi- 
nitions of judgment are open to the same 
criticism. So Sigwart would have us believe 
that the process of predication refers the newly 
entering idea, the subject, to an old idea, the 
predicate. This may occasionally happen, but 
is certainly not the universal process. Even in 

146 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

the judgment of recognition or the process of 
recognition psychologists are at present agreed 
that there is no necessary reference to a single 
idea. Even if one were to interpret Sigwart's 
old idea as our type or concept, it would be 
highly doubtful whether the subject of the judg- 
ment stood for the new idea, or if the unref erred 
somewhat were in consciousness at all, as has 
been shown in connection with the definition of 
Bradley and other modern logicians. The defi- 
nition of Sigwart is a psychological definition 
that does not do justice to the mental operations 
actually involved. 

"Whether the judging operation is a process 
of analysis, as Wundt would have us believe, 
or is a process of synthesis as most of the other 
definitions assert or imply, seems to depend 
again upon the presuppositions as to what is 
present in consciousness before the judging be- 
gins. If we regard the object as a mass of 
elements standing in consciousness before judg- 
ment has operated at all, then it is possible to 
say that as we attend to the mass we pick out 
one aspect that constitutes the subject and then 
another element that constitutes the predicate 
and that they are held together by the fact that 
both were found together in the original un- 

147 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

analyzed mass. The judgment process is cer- 
tainly analytic. If we assume that the two ele- 
ments were present in consciousness as distinct 
elements before the judging process and that 
they are combined only in the judging opera- 
tion, then judgment is synthetic. The great 
difficulty with either view is that the elements 
cannot be shown to be present in the unanalyzed 
state before the operation of judging. The 
mass is assumed only to explain the final out- 
come. When we look at it as a mass it is not 
present at all or it is not present with the 
qualities that come out of it in the process of 
judging. These latter we know only when we 
judge it in the one particular way. At other 
times it is always something else even if we do 
call it by the same name at all times. On the 
other hand, the two elements of the synthetic 
judgment are not present in consciousness be- 
fore they are connected. The operation of con- 
necting and of generating the elements is a 
single one. When the process is completed, we 
have two elements united; we do not have first 
one then the other, then the union. Neither 
the statement of synthesis or of analysis is 
quite properly made. Of the processes that are 
usually called judgment, some fall more nearly 

148 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

under the head of synthesis, others more nearly 
under the head of analysis, but the classifica- 
tion with reference to the distinction can be 
left over for the sake of convenience until we 
have given further discussion of the judgment 
from the descriptive point of view. 

It is evident from the theories of judgment 
that there are a number of different operations 
currently designated as judgment, and that, 
when the definitions apply to the same general 
process, different phases of the process are em- 
phasized to the exclusion of others that might 
equally well be regarded as essential. Each of 
these operations and phases must be kept dis- 
tinct, and the definite presuppositions that lie 
at the basis of the definitions must be distin- 
guished before we can hope to find the kernel 
of agreement or sharply oppose the disagree- 
ment between the theories. In the first place 
we must distinguish definitions that apply to 
language and the completed operation, from 
those that apply to the mental operation and 
the judgment in its genesis and origin. Much 
that is involved in the production of the judg- 
ment does not find expression in words at all, 
and if we regard the judgment as isolated from 
its context there is often no indication of many 

149 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

of the circumstances that are vital to the opera- 
tion as a mental process. On the other hand, 
the translation of the mental operation into 
words may not be complete. In fact, we shall 
see that there is no necessary one to one rela- 
tion between the judgment as a mental opera- 
tion and the resulting expression. Elements 
that are important for thought are omitted in 
expression, and factors that are made promi- 
nent in expression may be the result of conven- 
tion rather than of the thought process. If we 
are to make much headway in the process of 
ordering the judgment forms we must turn to 
study the judgment in the making and see how 
the simple apprehension processes are trans- 
lated into language. 

The first problem in this connection is to see 
how the different kinds of judgment in the 
earlier descriptions are actually translated into 
language. To study the dead product when one 
has access to the operation of producing is 
very much the same as to spend time specu- 
lating what purpose a gear found in the road 
may have when one can go a little farther and 
see in actual operation the machine from which 
it fell. If one studies the judgment as the dead 
result, the conclusions are very much like the 

150 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

results of the seven blind men of the story book 
who studied the elephant. Each is an interpre- 
tation of a part, but no understanding of the 
whole can be obtained until the parts are con- 
sidered together. 

If we begin with the judgment of perception 
as is customary at present with logicians as 
well as with psychologists, our first problem is 
how our appreciation of an object or situation 
is expressed in language. The most immediate 
translation and the one that perhaps best ex- 
presses it is the interjection, the cry of "wolf !" 
or "fire!" when the animal or object is recog- 
nized. The single cry arouses in the mind of 
the hearer the same appreciation that it does 
in the mind of the observer and speaker, and if 
the context is the same there is the same aware- 
ness of the exigencies of the situation. It pre- 
pares for the same set of activities. There is 
but a single mental operation in the interpre- 
tation, there is similarly but a single word in 
the judgment. All else that is necessary to an 
understanding is supplied by the context, by 
the hearer's knowledge of the situation. This 
is the type of the linguistic judgment. The 
second stage in the advancing complexity of 
expression is the impersonal judgment, "It's 
11 151 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

raining," or in the same situation as above, 
"It's a wolf." What to do with the "it" has 
long been a bone of contention between logi- 
cians and grammarians. It has been often 
conjectured that "it" stood for nature, for the 
deity and similar hypotheses. These are evi- 
dently not satisfactory, or they would not vary 
so greatly. Marty, a disciple of Brentano, is 
much nearer the mark when he asserts that only 
one process is involved in the impersonal judg- 
ment and that is the appreciation or perception 
of the presence of the animal or the rain plus 
the assertion of its existence. Both of these 
factors are undoubtedly involved, but as has 
been insisted so often there is probably no 
express assertion of belief in the truth of the 
perception. That is taken for granted here as 
everywhere. What is of importance is the 
character of the object and the fact that it is 
present rather than that it is merely existent. 
In brief, the impersonal judgment involves 
nothing more than the inter jectional. It ex- 
presses the appreciation of the object or the 
quality that presents itself and nothing more. 
One might ask why then the "it" and the 
copula ? The answer is that the linguistic con- 
vention of subject and predicate has become so 

152 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

thoroughly established that any other expres- 
sion seems awkward. Nothing is meant by the 
"it." Nothing in mind corresponds to it. Its 
presence is due to a mere habit of language. 

If the same kind of appreciation is present in 
both the inter jectional and the impersonal judg- 
ment, the question might easily arise why is 
it that one form is employed at one time and 
the other at another. The answer to this 
question is to be found, not in the mental opera- 
tion itself, but in a second set of controls that 
are at work in expression. This is the appreci- 
ation of the social situation, of the men about 
and their attitude toward the speaker, their 
distance from him and other similar factors. 
If the men are near and the general situation 
is appreciated, the impersonal form of judgment 
is the more likely to be used. If the speaker is 
remote from the others and the danger is great 
and immediate, he will employ the inter jectional 
form. For some reason hidden in the obscur- 
ity of the development of language, the inter- 
jection is the form of emotion and of long 
distance communication. Undoubtedly the rea- 
son is to be found in part in the practical effi- 
ciency of the one word as a cry. It requires 
less time to complete and is more easily 

153 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

shouted, will carry farther than the longer 
form. If walking with a companion, and the 
character of some object has been under discus- 
sion, the first man to identify it would say, 
"There's a wolf," or "It's a wolf." If he 
is alone or, if coupled with the determination 
is the appreciation that flocks are in danger 
and can be saved by immediate action on the 
part of men at a distance, the impersonal ex- 
pression would give place to the cry. This ap- 
preciation of the social circumstances and needs 
exerts the same sort of directing influence upon 
the expression that the mental context does 
upon the selection of the object to be appreci- 
ated and the way it shall be appreciated or 
interpreted. The social factor plays an im- 
portant part in the determination of the form 
of expression and consequently we shall find it 
necessary to consider it throughout in connec- 
tion with the spoken judgments. 

The next stage in the complexity of the judg- 
ment as a linguistic unit is the so-called demon- 
strative judgment. In the demonstrative judg- 
ment an indication of the place of an object is 
added to mere appreciation. In the instance 
above if the position of the wolf were a matter 
of importance and were not sufficiently well 

154 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

known from the context, the probability is that 
some demonstrative might be used, "That is a 
wolf," or " There is a wolf," or some similar 
form. This part of the communication might 
easily be supplied by a gesture or by the direc- 
tion of the glance. In fact were there not some 
such gesture, or if common direction of gaze 
could not be assumed on the basis of earlier con- 
versation, the "that" or "this" or "there" 
would have no meaning in itself sufficiently defi- 
nite to be helpful. In considering this type of 
judgment we must be on our guard on the one 
hand against taking the demonstrative too 
seriously, and on the other of neglecting the 
essentially spatial appreciation that may be in- 
volved in the simpler forms of judgment already 
discussed. In many cases the demonstrative 
is prefixed as the result of linguistic convention, 
as was the "it" of the impersonal. "There" 
has become a conventional word to introduce a 
sentence when no reference to space is intended, 
but one desires to avoid repetition of the usual 
subject-predicate order. "That" and "this" 
are often employed in conversation in very 
much the same way. In such a case nothing be- 
yond simple apprehension would be involved 
in the judging process as a mental operation. 

155 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SEASONING 

But on the other hand, neither of the earlier 
discussed forms of judgment would be of great 
practical importance unless this spatial appre- 
ciation were involved in them to some degree 
even if only implicitly. Apprehension as pre- 
liminary to action would be valueless without 
appreciation of spatial position. Similarly 
valueless would be the expression that we have 
in the demonstrative judgment, unless supple- 
mented by gesture or direction of glance. The 
judgment of one kind is on the same level as 
the other in making evident the space relation. 
The demonstrative is as helpless as the imper- 
sonal judgment in assigning position to the 
object appreciated. Both must either assume 
a knowledge of position on the part of the 
listener, or must trust for the indication of the 
object presented to the attitude of the speaker 
revealed in some other way than through words. 
The demonstrative in this case is either a 
convention of language, due to some vague 
consciousness of the importance of the position 
as apart from the quality or the general char- 
acter of the object, or a suggestion to the hearer 
that he look to see where the speaker is point- 
ing or looking. 

Other forms of the demonstrative judgment 
156 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

carry us a step farther toward what one regards 
as the typical judgment, the simple perceptive 
judgment, or the simple categorical judgment 
that has two distinct parts. This comes when 
one uses the "that" to indicate a direction and 
the direction is itself the essence of the process. 
Such, for example, are the expressions "That is 
east," "This is west," or when two objects are 
important because of their position rather than 
because of their quality. We must grant that 
in this case there are two appreciations of the 
object, one with reference to its character, the 
other with reference to its position and that 
each is or may be equally important. Discus- 
sion of demonstratives of this kind can be post- 
poned to advantage to a later connection. 
They evidently do not belong among those that 
may be brought under the definition of judg- 
ment that has been given as the appreciation of 
a single object. The first form of the demon- 
strative belongs with the inter jectional and im- 
personal judgment. All three can be considered 
as the linguistic counterparts of the psycholog- 
ical judgment as we have defined it. Each has 
but a single term although that term may be 
expressed in more than one word. 
As we approach the typical judgment of 
157 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

formal logic, in which subject and predicate each 
represents an object, quality or activity, it is by 
no means so easy to bring the operation under 
our definition. When, for example, one asserts 
of an object in the field of view that ''that tree 
is green" there is not one act of apprehension 
but two. Two meanings are apparently added, 
the single object is given two different interpre- 
tations. This, to be sure, is not always the case. 
Often the subject is not important at the mo- 
ment of speaking, but is spoken almost unthink- 
ingly, or is supplied on the basis of an earlier 
interpretation. But in many cases it must be 
admitted that the subject is as much the result 
of a distinct act of judgment, in the terms of the 
last chapter, as is the predicate. The two pos- 
sible definitions of the judgment process that 
are current represent actual differences in the 
importance of the subject. On the one side it 
is occasionally, perhaps often, but slightly em- 
phasized. This corresponds to the definition of 
Bradley and the Dewey school that the subject 
is the mere given to which the predicate is 
attached to give it meaning. Existence as a 
tree with its qualities is taken for granted, or 
even is introduced to satisfy the language con- 
vention. But on the other hand there can be 

158 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

little doubt that the subject in many cases rep- 
resents just as complete an interpretation of the 
entering impression as does the predicate. 
These cases justify the traditional usage of 
making subject and predicate on the same level 
of importance, whatever we may think of the 
traditional method of disposing of the connec- 
tion itself. All degrees of importance between 
these two extremes attach to the subject. In 
deciding this question we can not come to any 
safe conclusion if we take the judgment apart 
from its setting, and we can best illustrate and 
prepare for our conclusions on the basis of 
hypothetical situations in which the judgments 
might be passed. 

It is inconceivable that the judgment "The 
tree is green" should be spoken unless there 
were some definite occasion for it. This occa- 
sion might be supplied by the presence of a 
companion, having in common with the speaker 
a purpose that might be satisfied by the discov- 
ery of a tree still in leaf. The purpose of the 
expedition may be to discover decorations for 
some festal occasion at a season when foliage 
is scarce. Under these conditions when a tree, 
still in leaf, presents itself, the remark is the 
natural one. In any such situation the exact 

159 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

words spoken are not to be taken too literally. 
Numerous other remarks might satisfy the same 
end. "That will do," "There" or even a ges- 
ture suffice to attract the attention of the hearer 
and inform him of the end of the quest, provided 
only he completely understands the situation 
and shares the purpose. If he does not, the 
words of the sentence are entirely inadequate. 
Under such circumstances the predicate alone 
is essential, the subject "the tree" is supplied 
by the earlier conversation. It would not be at 
all important at the moment and we might re- 
gard the actual judgment as nothing more than 
an intimation that here was the green that they 
had been looking for. The subject would be a 
remnant of a judgment process that had been 
completed before. A situation of this kind sat- 
isfies fairly well the conditions of the Bradley 
definition that judgment is merely the ascrip- 
tion of meaning to the given. It satisfies it, 
that is, so far as one does not accept what they 
seem to, that the subject is present as a mean- 
ingless somewhat, held in abeyance but still con- 
scious. On the contrary it has been already 
appreciated as something else, but that appre- 
ciation is taken for granted at the moment the 
judgment is passed. Consciousness is filled by 

160 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

the fact that the given is green — that it is a tree 
is entirely subordinate. This sort of implicit 
acceptance of the subject on the basis of earlier 
appreciation is very common. If we consider 
merely the operation, not the word form, we 
have but a single ascription of meaning, not two. 
The subject however represents not something 
that is meaningless but something to which a 
meaning of another kind has been ascribed a 
moment before and which is not prominently 
before consciousness at the instant. 

On the other hand there are many cases in 
which subject and predicate are equally impor- 
tant and each represents a distinct appreciation 
of the object. Such is the case when several 
small green objects have been examined and do 
not furnish a sufficient amount of foliage to 
make it worth while to carry them off. One 
might then make the remark "that tree is 
green," in which the appreciation of the object 
as a tree is equally important with the appre- 
ciation of the fact that it still retained its foli- 
age. It would be the equivalent of "That is 
a tree" and "It is green." Two meanings 
would be ascribed in succession and each would 
be as important as the other. It would be a 
process on the same level as attachment of 

161 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

successive predicates, as if one should say that 
ice is soft and dirty. In these cases there can 
be no doubt that the proposition involves two 
judgments in terms of the definition that we 
have given in the preceding chapter. One is 
compelled in cases such as these to give up all 
attempts to bring the definition into harmony 
with the traditional significance of the term. 

While then we can bring under the definition 
that is common in popular speech and modern 
logic all judgments of relation, and of spatial 
attributes, all impersonal and inter jectional 
judgments, most demonstrative judgments and 
a fair proportion of the simple judgments of 
perception, a small residue of the simple per- 
ceptive judgments remains in which it must be 
admitted that the thought as well as the form 
shows evidence of the presence of two terms. 
If we are compelled to assume that some of the 
relatively simple judgment forms of the logi- 
cians give what we have called two judgments 
rather than one, two questions at once arise, — 
first, what shall we call the process, and second 
and more important, what is the connection be- 
tween the two judgments or terms, what is it 
that holds them together? The first question 
we shall leave open until we have occasion to 

162 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

compare the more complex propositions with the 
simpler forms of inference. Certainly infer- 
ence and this form of the logician's judgment 
shade into one another. But before we make 
the assertion that all connections between two 
judgments as processes of interpretation are 
to be called inference, we must raise the second 
of our two questions, — what is the relation be- 
tween the two interpretations, what holds them 
together? 

If we confine ourselves for the moment to the 
judgment of perception, we see first of all that 
any relation depending upon the irreversibility 
of the terms must be rejected. Under this head 
come all the theories that assert that the pred- 
icate is essentially different in form or in its 
effect from the subject. This can be very easily 
shown from the fact that in most instances sub- 
ject and predicate can be interchanged and the 
judgment still remain a judgment. In our sim- 
ple instance one can quite readily conceive that 
a man might say "That green is a tree" and 
have it mean as much as ' ' That tree is green. ' ' 
It depends upon what his purpose in the search 
might be and the order of appreciation of the 
different qualities. If he wanted a tree for any 
purpose and one green object met his eye, he 

163 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

would point it out to a companion with tree as 
the predicate just as certainly as where trees 
were plentiful and foliage were scarce he would 
make green the predicate. This inversion of 
subject and predicate is applicable to all judg- 
ments of perception except possibly those that 
have their end in the process of naming. Which 
is subject, which predicate, depends altogether 
upon the purpose of the man at the moment and 
upon the circumstances under which he is speak- 
ing. This fact excludes all definitions like Sig- 
wart's that make the subject always a new 
impression, the predicate, the old idea to which 
it was referred. It also excludes all of the 
various kinds of subsumption. Even the judg- 
ment of naming is not altogether excluded from 
the test nor from the more general statement 
that the subject and predicate are more or less 
independent interpretations. The object may 
be named either in the more general or in the 
more particular way first. In either case one 
is subsuming the presented quale under two 
heads, that may be regarded as independent or 
that may stand to one another in some definite 
relation of generality. There is no reason why 
the predicate should be universally less general 
or more general. And while in practice it is 

164 



JUDGMENT AKD LANGUAGE 

probable that the more general term is most 
frequently made the predicate, that is by no 
means nniversal. 

If the subject-predicate order is not depend- 
ent upon the importance of the appreciation or 
upon its degree of generality, it would seem that 
even in the cases where each of the two terms 
stands for an independent appreciation the sub- 
ject and predicate can not be distinguished in 
any easy way. No positive and universal asser- 
tion can be made as to the particular function 
of one or the other nor that any particular 
operation is performed upon them by the juxta- 
position. So far as can be made out they are 
in themselves entirely independent operations. 
Why, then, are they juxtaposed? Two sugges- 
tions might be made. One is essentially real- 
istic, — that they are held together by the unity 
of the object, that each is a different interpre- 
tation of the same object and that all of the 
interpretations of that object are likely to be 
joined in a single proposition. While this is 
not the place for a discussion of realism it may 
be urged as a difficulty that there is doubt 
whether the object has these qualities before 
they are appreciated, and hence whether it can 
be said to exist as a unity in advance of the 

165 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

interpretations that are put upon it. One might 
insist that the qualities had been appreciated 
together before and now come back together 
because of that fact. This would reduce the 
reason for their successive presence to habit or 
to association rather than to the unitary nature 
of the object. 

Even more important probably is the expla- 
nation in terms of the unity of the purposes 
that the two interpretations further. If the 
problems that serve to develop the interpreta- 
tions are connected, the interpretations will suc- 
ceed one another. All the other possible inter- 
pretations that are not essential at the moment 
will be in abeyance, will not make their appear- 
ance. In other words, if we consider the judg- 
ment in isolation from the universe of discourse 
in which it is found, we can not understand the 
relation of subject and predicate. These two 
appreciations are held together by the general 
purpose that dominates consciousness over that 
whole period. It is also what controls the move- 
ment of thought for the same time. One can 
not understand the reason for the succession 
from an examination of the single pair because 
there is nothing in the single pair that decides 
that they shall be connected. What decides the 

166 



*r~ 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

order that the two appreciations shall take 
is the general situation of the moment. That 
also decides that they shall be connected and 
the nature of the connection. The single propo- 
sition is but a part of a total larger movement 
of thought, and it is this larger movement 
of thought that gives it order, that gives it what 
connection it has. Without it the judgment is 
a pair of disconnected appreciations. Again we 
may assert that the nature of the relation varies 
according to the whole of which it is a part, 
according to the purpose that is to be fulfilled 
at the moment. So at one moment the judgment 
is merely the process of connecting an object 
appreciated in one way with a wider class of 
appreciations, a process of classification or 
naming. At another moment it is a process of 
expressing an appreciated equality or identity; 
at still another it is the expression of a series 
of disconnected appreciations,' or of apprecia- 
tions that are connected only because they all 
serve to advance the purpose of the moment 
whatever that may be. 

In short, the judgment is but a link in a con- 
nected chain of thought and it is impossible to 
understand it apart from the chain. We are 

within the truth if we assert that no judgment 

12 167 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

of perception can be understood in its real mean- 
ing unless taken in its context. The reason for 
the expression both in form and in content can 
be understood only from the context. We have 
seen throughout that the same mental operation 
may lead to one of several expressions accord- 
ing to the social situation, the distance of audi- 
tors, their preparedness, etc. Similarly we can 
understand the connection of the elements in the 
mind of the speaker, only if we consider the 
entire situation from which it arises, the entire 
movement of thought in which it developed. 
Each of the theories that were examined is inad- 
equate in part because it has not asked what 
the connection between the parts of the judg- 
ment is in the actual setting in which it arises. 
Instead, they all ask what the connection might 
have been in any situation. To this no single 
answer can be returned. It might be any one 
of the forms of connection suggested, it may be 
none of them, but depend upon some chance 
succession of words. All of this leads to the 
one result that the nature of predication can 
not be denned in a single statement. Predica- 
tion may assert any one of several connections. 
One can say which one is intended in any par- 
ticular case only by a study of the actual pur- 

168 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

pose at the moment of judging. This may be 
known at first hand or from the context. 

An attempt to summarize our results so far 
as concerns the subsuming of the judgment of 
perception under the definition that we found 
to correlate the judgments as described by the 
psychologist, results in the statement that the 
mental operation behind the inter jectional and 
impersonal judgments, and behind many of the 
demonstrative and simple two-term categorical 
judgments, is evidently the correlate of the 
ascription of a single meaning to the presented 
somewhat. Of the other two-term judgments 
we can be sure that there are two interpreta- 
tions, that two judgments are involved. How 
these two interpretations are connected can not 
be determined from the proposition itself. The 
connection is controlled by the wider context 
of thought and varies between mere succession 
of appreciations, through the classification of 
bare naming, to the real classification of sub- 
sumption. A very large proportion of the 
processes that the formal logician calls judg- 
ment fall under our definition of the last chap- 
ter, and are really one-term processes that are 
either expressed in one word only, or in two 
words. Where two words are employed, as in 

169 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

the judgments of relation and many of the 
categorical judgments, the subject does not cor- 
respond to a vital mental operation at the mo- 
ment, but is added to comply with linguistic 
convention. Since the judgment process of 
formal logic is psychologically not a single proc- 
ess, but represents a large number of diverse 
operations which can not be brought under a 
single statement, and since the connection can 
not be stated in terms of the single proposition 
alone but must be regarded in terms of the 
whole movement of thought, there seems to be 
no reason why we should not define judgment in 
the popular way, and in harmony with the defi- 
nition of Bradley and Bosanquet. Those forms 
of the judgment of the formal logician that will 
not come under this head, we may either call 
propositions, or we may push them on to the 
next more complicated operation, inference. 

This somewhat radical change in nomencla- 
ture may seem the more justifiable if one con- 
siders the undue proportion of reasoning that 
recent logical theory has brought under the head 
of judgment, and the little that is left to the 
more practical operation of inference. Super- 
ficially regarded this seems to indicate that the 
recent writers have failed to find any sharp line 

170 



JUDGMENT AND LANGUAGE 

of distinction between what they call judgment 
and what they call inference and have been 
crowding more and more into the judgment until 
at present there is on their designation nothing, 
or very little, left over for the inference. The 
present scheme leaves three forms over to infer- 
ence : the judgment of perception in which two 
interpretations are given of the presentation; 
those cases in which the first interpretation sug- 
gests an older impression, a memory; and the 
whole series of propositions in which both terms 
are supplied by memory. How far it may be 
possible to bring these all under one head is one 
of the problems for the remaining discussion. 



CHAPTER VI 

INFERENCE 

We approach the problem of inference with 
a considerable portion of what is ordinarily 
designated judgment still to dispose of. It has 
become evident from the two preceding chapters 
that a large proportion of the propositions that 
the logician calls judgment are judgments in 
our sense, — are simple interpretations of the 
presented. But we have left over three sorts 
of judgment with distinct subject and predi- 
cate, those in which there are two interpreta- 
tions of the given. These include (1) those in 
which there are two interpretations of the given, 
(2) those that add to the presented some quality 
that it is remembered to have had at an earlier 
presentation, (3) instances in which we im- 
agine that the object has been changed in some 
way or see how it could be changed to advan- 
tage. The first of these processes is called the 
analytic judgment in the spirit of the current 
logical usage; the second, the synthetic judg- 

172 



INFERENCE 

ment; the third is universally accepted as a 
process of inference. Our first problem in this 
chapter is to trace the distinctions and simi- 
larities between these three processes to deter- 
mine whether they can be brought under a single 
head. 

In beginning the investigation we may at once 
take advantage of the lesson learned in the dis- 
cussion of the judgment, and recognize the fact 
that there is no necessary relation between the 
form of expression in language, and the actual 
mental operation. We shall, in consequence, be- 
gin at once with specific thought processes to 
determine how far they are similar, how far 
dissimilar in the three cases. Perhaps one in- 
stance will do as well as another. "That tree 
is green," which has already been discussed in 
another connection, may suffice in spite of its 
triviality. Here certainly is an analytic judg- 
ment of perception. Both the greenness and 
the tree may be said to be analyzed from the 
immediately perceived. Probably too there is 
little or no subordination of one to the other. 
At least, as was demonstrated in an earlier dis- 
cussion, either may be regarded as subordinate 
to the other according to the circumstances un- 
der which the assertion is made. And, were 

173 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

there any occasion for the addition, we might 
continue to add similar attributes as evergreen, 
tall, and the like, that would still further define 
the object. The simplest of the synthetic judg- 
ments differs from this only slightly. Such, 
for example, "The tree would supply tough 
wood." Here the quality is not regarded as 
necessarily contained in the object, but is added 
to the object of presentation on the basis of 
earlier knowledge. Toughness is no immediate 
quality of sensation and cannot be seen directly, 
but similar bits of wood or parts of similarly 
green trees have, when tested in the past, been 
found to be tough. What is seen is some rough- 
ness of bark, or color or shape of leaf and these 
serve to reinstate the toughness as a general 
idea, to recall a definite earlier experience. 

Again the process of addition may go farther. 
The actual connection may never have been in 
experience before, and the added element may 
be some improvement or change in the object. 
Instead of actually recalling the use of the twig 
that proved it to be tough, there may be sug- 
gested the idea of grafting on the tree a twig of 
hickory that shall grow numerous tough twigs, 
or some way of preparing the wood may suggest 
itself that shall give to what was naturally brit- 

174 



INFEBENCE 

tie wood some degree of resiliency. In this 
case, too, there is nothing more than the addi- 
tion of old experiences to the new that will 
modify it in some degree or other. The earlier 
experience has not been definitely connected 
with this particular object or perhaps with any 
object of a similar kind. Certainly to the first 
man who grafted a tree, if it were done inten- 
tionally, there had never been any close connec- 
tion between the thought from which the action 
grew and any similar act. And each time the 
process is repeated on a new plant or animal, 
processes are connected that have not previously 
been connected in any way closer than to recog- 
nize the likeness of the two species and the 
probable similar response of objects, alike in 
some characteristic essential for the experiment 
in question. An instance of this kind is uni- 
versally called inference. 

The specific instances show a number of close 
similarities. Each consists in the primary rec- 
ognition of some phase either directly seen or 
supplied from memory. In fact if we look more 
closely into the psychological mechanism, it 
becomes a question whether it is not more diffi- 
cult to distinguish one from the other than it 
is to find points of resemblance. True, in the 

175 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

first instance, it seems that there could be no 
difficulty in deciding whether the second quality 
were actually given in sensation or were added 
from memory. In the assertion "the tree is 
green" there might be little or no doubt that 
the color appreciated is an immediate sense 
quality, but when we go a step farther to the 
form, or to the size, or even to the simple proc- 
ess of naming, it becomes a question whether 
one could say that the judgment were analytic 
or synthetic. The more apparently simple per- 
ceptual qualities are analyzed, the more complex 
they are found to be, the more they are seen 
to depend upon the addition of elements from 
memory rather than upon the mere entrance 
of a quality actually present in the object or 
given. It would be very difficult to say in the 
light of recent investigations in space percep- 
tion, whether the recognition of toughness in 
the twigs of a tree were more the result of mem- 
ory processes than the recognition of the size 
of the twig, or of its direction, or than the dis- 
crimination between the actual color of the 
object and the apparent color due to the contrast 
and shadow effects. Each of these character- 
istics comes to consciousness immediately ; there 
is no more awareness of the mental operation 

176 



INFEKENCE 

that results in the interpretation than there is 
of what takes place before the entrance of the 
green in the simplest instance of sensation or 
perception. It is only elaborate and long con- 
tinued psychological analysis that has led to 
the recognition of the fact that in these space 
perceptions we are dealing with interpretation 
and not with immediate sensation. Without 
raising the question whether there is not a pos- 
sibility that one day the simplest processes may 
be analyzed into still simpler parts, it is impos- 
sible to decide exactly where to draw the line 
between the cases where subject and predicate 
are both given in immediate sensation and 
where one is added from memory. All would 
agree that recognition of the size of an object 
is due to factors immediately given in percep- 
tion and sensation, but it would be very difficult 
to decide on any psychological grounds between 
that and let us say determination of the prob- 
able size of an animal from its footprints in the 
snow. 

The two forms of judgment are alike not 
merely in the materials of which they are com- 
posed but in the way the second is selected 
from the number of qualities, phases or mem- 
ories that might come to consciousness at that 

177 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

particular time. Whether one phase or another 
shall appear depends upon the interest, upon 
the dominant problem, upon the controlling pur- 
pose at the moment. As we said before, you 
will notice the greenness of the tree only when 
you are looking for foliage with which to deco- 
rate a room, or for shade, or as forage for 
cattle, or what not. Were the mental situation 
or context to change, there would be similar 
change in the quality or phase that is seen. In 
exactly the same way in the more synthetic 
judgment, what shall be added from memory to 
the first impression depends altogether upon 
the setting, mental and physical. The tree will 
suggest toughness of wood only if it is desired 
to obtain wood for some definite purpose. And 
so for the intermediate forms of judgment. 
One sees the size of the object, or its distance 
only if one or the other is important. In short, 
the succession of phases that shall present them- 
selves in the bare sensing, the characteristics 
that shall be added in perception or in the syn- 
thetic judgment, depend upon the same general 
set of conditions, upon the mental context at 
the moment. 

The difference between inference in its sim- 
pler forms and the synthetic judgment is fully 

178 



INFEBENCE 

as fleeting as is the difference between the 
analytic and synthetic judgment. There is no 
question here that the materials are iden- 
tical. In both, what is added is a memory proc- 
ess. The only possible distinction that can be 
made is in terms of the relative newness of the 
addition, in the frequency with which the same 
two elements have been found together, and 
where one was new, the degree of divergence 
between what is added now and what had been 
seen before. There would, for example, be no 
question that we were dealing with judgment 
alone, or at least had nothing to do with infer- 
ence in the ordinary sense of the term in case 
we were merely passing some remark upon the 
size of an object, or more simply upon the rela- 
tive size of two objects. If it were a question 
of deciding whether a track in the snow were 
of a rabbit or a squirrel there would be more 
difference of opinion. Whether it were made 
a problem of perception or of inference would 
probably depend in last analysis upon the 
method by which the conclusion was reached. 
If the man who decided were perfectly familiar 
with the two animals and the footprints so that 
but a glance were necessary to decide, it would 
be called judgment, or mere perception if we 

179 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

keep to the psychological ground. If the on- 
looker were more skilled in theoretical or book 
science than in woodcraft, the conclusion might 
be reached slowly and more self-consciously. 
There might be successive trials of the fact un- 
der different heads, and a gradual elimination 
of the impossible or unlikely conclusions. This 
would be inference. Between these two ex- 
tremes would lie a host of cases gradually shad- 
ing from one to the other. For some the inter- 
pretative addition would be immediate, for 
others long deliberation would be required. 
Certainly no one point in the scale of immedi- 
ateness or explicit consciousness of the proc- 
esses would be accepted by all as marking 
the line between inference and what is not infer- 
ence. 

One might be tempted to make the line of divi- 
sion again on the basis of the newness of the 
addition. If the interpretation consisted in the 
addition of an element that had been frequently 
noticed in connection with the thing perceived, 
we would certainly have to do with synthetic 
judgment. If on the other hand the two had 
been but infrequently connected, the process 
would be called inference. This is an uncertain 
criterion, partly because there are all degrees 

180 



INFERENCE 

of frequency as there are of complexity, partly 
because there are cases that would certainly 
come under the head of judgment that had been 
connected but once before, such as learning the 
name of an object by one repetition. On the 
other hand some would still rank as inference 
in spite of the fact that they had been repeated 
several times, and the process of inference 
might be run through with little or no difficulty. 
Again the degree of similarity between the pres- 
ent set of circumstances and the earlier that 
served to suggest the change might be used as a 
criterion. This is open to the same objections. 
The presented can never be identical with any 
previous experience. It must be interpreted, 
and whether the interpretation that one makes 
is fairly new or is the result of mere habit 
depends upon the man and upon the circum- 
stances under which he is working. There is 
no objective measure of the difference at the 
extremes and no satisfactory line of division 
at all. To the first man who succeeded in think- 
ing of the possibility of grafting parts of the 
body of one animal upon another, there was 
presented the idea of the similarity between 
plant and animal tissues. Whether plant and 
animal were for this man more similar than 

181 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

were the rose and apple to the first gardener 
who grafted the rose, would be a question that 
could be answered only by a definite knowledge 
of the mental make-up of the two men and the 
conditions under which each worked. It is, 
however, not at all impossible that the garden- 
er's processes at the time were defined as a mere 
synthetic judgment, as bare association induced 
by failure to recognize the difference be- 
tween the two kinds of vegetation, while the 
scientist's grafting would undoubtedly be 
classed under inference. Between would run 
all sorts of gradations. What would be infer- 
ence for one man in the popular sense certainly 
would not be for another if we use exactly the 
same definition of inference in the two cases. 
Again, to connect this illustration with one that 
was used earlier, whether the suggestion of 
grafting is more of an addition to that immedi- 
ately given than the recognition of the quality 
of bending or of burning readily, would be a 
question that reduces ultimately to the fre- 
quency of earlier connection. 

There is finally no difference in the nature of 
the control processes that determine the course 
of the stream of thought, that decide what the 
particular addition shall be in each case. What 

182 ■ 



INFERENCE 

the addition is to be depends in inference as in 
perception npon the problem one is trying to 
solve, upon the end that one has set one's self 
to attain. When the tree is in consciousness 
one thinks of grafting if dissatisfied with the 
product of the tree ; one thinks of propping up 
the limbs and looks for means of supporting 
them if it is appreciated that the yield is too 
great for the strength of the limbs. In this 
regard, too, inference is not to be distinguished 
from the processes that are ordinarily called 
judgment. The nature of the control is on ex- 
actly the same level. 

Apparently then the three processes of ana- 
lytic judgment, synthetic judgment and infer- 
ence in logic are not to be easily distinguished. 
They are alike in the elements of which each 
is composed, in the nature of the consciousness 
that accompanies, in the nature of the factors 
that control their course, and it is even difficult 
to draw a distinction in terms of the simplicity 
or complexity of the processes. We seem to 
have too few distinctions or too many words. 
At this juncture some change from the usual 
nomenclature seems necessary. For my own 
use I propose to adopt explicitly at this point 
the usage that I have been following without 
13 183 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

any preliminary justification. It is certainly 
possible to distinguish between the first appre- 
ciation and the interpretation that is added to 
it, or between the first appreciation and the 
second appreciation that succeeds it. My sug- 
gestion is that we call the first of these proc- 
esses judgment, and the second either inference 
or a succession of judgments. In this usage 
we must have reference to the psychological 
process and not to the expression in words. 
The necessity for this distinction has, I trust, 
been made clear. This departure from current 
usage is not so radical as it may seem at first 
sight. Many of the more recent writers either 
by their own avowal or by the logical conse- 
quences of their definition have made the judg- 
ment a single process. Brentano in his defini- 
tion of judgment as an expression of belief or 
disbelief, Kiilpe and Marbe who define it as com- 
parison, Bradley and Bosanquet, Dewey and 
others who define it as the addition of meaning 
to the given, all explicitly or by a necessary re- 
sult of their conclusions make judgment a uni- 
tary process. Here, too, we may mention the 
fact that Binet finds reasoning in perception and 
Helmholtz calls perception unconscious infer- 
ence. 

184 



INFEEENCE 

The discussion of the relation of judgment 
to inference has followed the psychological and 
popular usage somewhat more than the logical. 
The logician always defines inference as made 
up of judgments, as a process by which two 
propositions are united in a way to give rise 
to a third that states a new truth derived from 
them. The first proposition is the major prem- 
ise and asserts a general principle, the second 
or minor premise contains an application of 
the general truth to the particular set of cir- 
cumstances, while the third states the conclu- 
sion, the new truth. If all of these operations 
and processes are in consciousness during the 
inference and determine the character and 
course of the inference, obviously one cannot 
describe the process as the mere combination 
of two mental processes or the succession of 
two appreciations. But the logician's insist- 
ence on the presence of the premises during the 
actual reasoning has long been questioned. 
Thomas Brown early in the last century denied 
that the major premise has any real part in 
reasoning. Many skeptical individuals have 
argued that if reasoning did nothing more than 
recombine propositions it would make no real 
contributions to knowledge. Careful examina- 

185 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

tion of the procedure in N a case of concrete rea- 
soning, will, I believe, convince anyone that he 
is actually aware of nothing but the conclusion. 
If it be accepted that inference consists of the 
conclusion alone, the question why the formal 
logician gives the premises so large a place in 
his discussion naturally presents itself. The 
answer is to be found in the fact that the logi- 
cian has been for the most part indifferent to 
the origin of the conclusion, he has been con- 
cerned with its truth alone. All of his efforts 
have been devoted to proving that the conclusion 
is true, he has given no thought to the mental 
processes that originated it, he has even denied 
that it is the product of mental laws. He has 
never gone behind the words that express the 
conclusion and he has considered them as they 
stood in a book not with reference to the mental 
processes that give rise to them. As a matter 
of fact, the essential part of thinking is to know 
that the results attained are correct; how they 
originate is a question that interests one only 
as it points out methods that should be avoided. 
Furthermore, inference and proof are entirely 
independent of each other. One may prove con- 
clusions attained in any way, even if they origi- 
nate by chance or are taken from someone else. 

186 



INFEKENCE 

Bad methods may give true results and if one 
only recognizes the results as true or false when 
they come, it matters not in practice whether 
the method be good or bad. 

The fallacy of the formal logician was that 
he devised methods adequate to prove his re- 
sults and then assumed that the methods of 
proof were the methods of deriving the results. 
When the conclusion was once given he found 
that he might give it added probability by refer- 
ring it to a general principle already estab- 
lished. This was the major premise. The 
reference of the conclusion to the general prin- 
ciple was made in the minor premise. If the 
premises existed as means of establishing the 
conclusion it was unconsciously assumed that 
they might also be the facts from which the 
conclusion developed as well. As the logician 
was never given to observing mental states, 
and needed an explanation of the origin of his 
conclusion he jumped at the chance to solve his 
problem in the quickest possible way. As was 
said in the first chapter, the logician was always 
satisfied to know how results might be obtained, 
he cared nothing for knowing how they were 
actually obtained. Our thesis then is that the 
syllogism arose through confusing inference 

187 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

and proof, that it is adequate to proof of one 
kind but has only remote relation to the deriv- 
ation of the conclusion. The thesis can be 
established by a consideration of the different 
forms of reasoning in the concrete. It will be 
seen that in actual reasoning the conclusion 
always precedes the premises where they are 
present at all, and also that the same influences 
give rise to the conclusion no matter how it may 
be proved. 

To avoid the many pitfalls that beset one in 
the discussion it is necessary to distinguish be- 
tween inference and proof. Conclusions all 
come through suggestion, and the laws of sug- 
gestion here are the laws of association as they 
are found in memory or imagination or in 
action. We may distinguish several different 
sorts of inference or ways of reaching conclu- 
sions. First, one has actions that give con- 
clusions of value with little or no antecedent 
thought. In animals we have little or no evi- 
dence of mental processes, but the acts very 
frequently give results that are similar to the 
reasoned conclusions of men. Frequently 
men's acts have a rational outcome when there 
is no antecedent thought to speak of. The sud- 
den demands of a game are met by movements 

188 



INFERENCE 

in which thinking and action are practically 
indistinguishable. Then one may distinguish 
the cases in which the thinking processes pre- 
cede the action by a noticeable period or in 
which the reference to action is remote. These 
two sorts of inference follow the same general 
laws and may be treated together. In each may 
be distinguished inferences in which the correct 
result is reached at the first trial and others in 
which many unsuccessful trials precede the 
attainment of the desired end. This distinc- 
tion is more evident in action or at least has 
been given more importance in action. Occa- 
sionally to be sure one makes the correct re- 
sponse at once, but more frequently, particu- 
larly when the movement is new or is a new 
combination of movements, one tries several 
times before the desired end is attained. Sim- 
ilarly in thought one sometimes hits upon the 
right idea at once, but more frequently numer- 
ous suggestions present themselves before one 
is satisfied with the result. If one is writing, 
several expressions come up before just the 
right turn is hit upon and the same is true 
in the designing of an instrument or the solu- 
tion of any puzzle. One tries plan after plan in 
thought before one is satisfied. It is not until 

189 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

some suggestion has passed the test that in- 
ference is complete. 

It might appear from all this that human 
thinking is altogether like the method of 
learning that Thorndike and numerous other 
more recent workers have demonstrated to be 
fundamental for animal acquirement. That 
just as the animal keeps struggling in one way 
or another and needs only a sufficient diversity 
of movement and sense enough to know when 
the end is attained, so man needs no more 
than a large number of suggestions and an ade- 
quate test of the results, to accomplish any end 
whatsoever. On this assumption, if a mathe- 
matician were dictating an original treatise to 
a stenographer ignorant of mathematics, the 
mistakes of the stenographer would be as fruit- 
ful as the thinking of the scholar, provided only 
they were sufficiently numerous and the mathe- 
matician was qualified to select the conclusions 
that were true. The grain of truth in the idea 
is the absolute independence of obtaining and 
testing a conclusion. But it does not follow that 
the suggestions come without law. They cer- 
tainly are more likely to come to certain minds 
than to others. A man trained in mathematics 
is more likely to have the solution of a problem 

190 



INFERENCE 

present itself to him as well as more certain 
to be right in accepting the suggestion when 
it comes. While, then, the suggestions leave 
more to chance than does the test, it does not fol- 
low that suggestions arise without reference to 
law. But the laws of suggestion take us once 
more into psychology. 

The laws that govern the appearance of the 
solution or that give rise to the suggestions 
or to the movements are the laws of association. 
In the simple case of movement, the stimulus 
or the appreciation of the stimulus calls out the 
response that has been earlier connected with 
that stimulus. It is a question of habit, nothing 
more. Where several responses have been 
made upon the same stimulus as would be nec- 
essary if the process is to be classed as reason- 
ing, one response is selected from the others in 
the light of the connected circumstances, or in 
terms of the particular mental context. Where 
all of the important circumstances are consid- 
ered or are reflected in the response the reason- 
ing is adequate, where some are omitted the 
trial is unsuccessful and the result is not called 
reasoning unless it can be said that the trial 
contributed something to the final result or one 
speaks of the process as a whole. The success- 

191 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

fill trials then are guided not merely by the 
immediate cue but by the purpose of the indi- 
vidual and by many other elements of the en- 
vironment, present and immediately past. The 
larger the number of relevant circumstances 
that are effective in the control, the greater the 
probability that the act will be adequate. 

One may distinguish the same laws in the 
operation of thinking with reference to a later 
act. Here again some cue must be present such 
as the appreciation of the situation actually 
present or imagined. This suggests some ope- 
ration that has been earlier in connection with 
the situation. Since ordinarily many sugges- 
tions might come up and only one actually does 
appear some criterion of selection must be 
found, and is furnished by the wider context 
of the moment and the situation in which the 
whole problem is appreciated. The selecting 
force is to be found in the purpose and the 
related circumstances of the situation, together 
with more remote experiences of the individual 
so far as these are not included in the purpose. 
And as with movements the suggestions that 
prove on the whole more satisfactory are those 
that are guided by the wider experience, and 
by the more adequate appreciation of all the 

192 



INFERENCE 

circumstances. The cue or the appreciated sit- 
uation plus the purpose of the individual and 
his relevant experiences constitute the condi- 
tions that suggest the conclusion. The char- 
acter of the conclusion depends upon these influ- 
ences. When several tentative solutions 
present themselves one after another the atti- 
tude of the thinker varies for each. 

The laws that control the suggestion of a 
movement are the same as the laws that sug- 
gest the thought. We may distinguish in each 
the suggestions that are immediately adequate 
from the solutions that are attained only after 
numerous trials, and when the correct solution 
appears at once it is due in each case to the 
proper interaction of cue and control. One may 
go farther in pointing out similarities since 
there is a constant interaction between the two 
sorts of reasoning. Purely ideal solutions ordi- 
narily lead sooner or later to action and solu- 
tions in idea need frequently to be checked and 
corrected by solutions of a material sort. One 
can seldom picture the conditions so clearly that 
the construction in thought will be entirely ade- 
quate. One nearly always overlooks some es- 
sential part of the problem until the solution 
is transferred to material construction. I have 

193 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

been told by a scientist of great ingenuity in 
the construction of physical instruments that 
he has frequently tried to think out a device 
that should need no modification when it was 
actually built, but always without success. He 
finds that some essential factor is always for- 
gotten until the parts are really seen. His 
memory for details is not sufficient to recall 
or construct all the factors of the problem. It 
is necessary to receive suggestions from the 
eye to attain an adequate solution. Reason- 
ing as response and as mental construction then 
are mutually helpful and are frequently parts 
of the same process. They show the same vari- 
eties and are governed by the same laws. For 
practical purposes they may be regarded as of 
the same class. 

Differences in reasoning then must be sought 
primarily not in the different ways in which 
conclusions are reached but in the different 
ways of testing the conclusions. Whether the 
testing or proving is by induction, deduction, 
analogy or experiment the conclusion is reached 
by the simple process of suggestion that we have 
described. The so-called forms of reasoning 
differ only in the way the results are proved, 
not in the way they are attained. This can be 

194 



INFERENCE 

seen in many of the famous scientific conclu- 
sions that are on record. The most striking 
perhaps from the accuracy of the contemporary 
account is Darwin's doctrine of natural selec- 
tion. "We can trace in Wallace's account of 
the way the conclusion was reached both by 
Darwin and himself all the various elements of 
the reasoning process as we have analyzed them 
from the complex. Darwin's problem was set 
by observing the wide divergence in species 
among beetles with which he had been working 
all his life. The suggestion of the solution came 
suddenly from reading Malthus' "Essay on 
Population" and particularly from the sugges- 
tion that in the final struggle only the fit could 
win. The similarity of the conditions to those 
of his own problem struck him at once. The 
proof was for Darwin an inductive process and 
occupied him for twenty years. Still more 
striking is the fact that Wallace, with the same 
problem derived from a study of the same mate- 
rial, should get identically the same suggestion 
from reading the same work and should apply it 
in the same way and in almost the same words. 
The difference between the two men was found 
in the time devoted to proof. Wallace was con- 
tent to publish the conclusion to the world on the 

195 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

proof of his own earlier observations and from 
more general considerations and analogies, 
while Darwin sought confirmation inductively 
by the study of a large number of separate in- 
stances. 

The story of Newton and the fall of the apple, 
although probably apocryphal, illustrates the 
same point. Here the problem had long been 
present and the solution was suggested by a 
perception. To that extent the ordinary rela- 
tion was reversed. The problem is usually in 
perception, the solution in idea, but still the 
solution can be traced to an association between 
the situation or the problem and the suggestion 
of the solution. Here too the final suggestion 
of the worlds mutually falling toward one an- 
other was in imagination, the perception is but 
an intermediate link in the chain. For Newton 
the proof was found in a reference to estab- 
lished principles as well as to observed facts, so 
that the reasoning would more nearly approach 
the process designated as deduction. In the 
more truly deductive reasoning of mathematics 
the conclusions seem to present themselves in 
the same way. The proof alone is deductive. 
If one is solving a problem in geometry one 
tries one construction after another until some 

196 



INFERENCE 

one is found that fulfills the conditions. The 
deductive phase of the process is the reference 
to general laws that constitutes the proof. 
Even in the experiment at the other extreme 
one does not try all possible combinations, but 
one first gets a suggestion as one gets it in 
induction and then tries the idea in practice. 
Of course there are experiments that consist of 
making measurements where the outcome is en- 
tirely unforeseen, but they would not give re- 
sults at all comparable with deduction. They 
are not at all constructive in character. The 
ordinary experiment that contributes to an un- 
derstanding of anything is a process of testing 
some conjecture. In the process new con- 
jectures are constantly arising to be tested in 
turn, but that is incidental to the experiment in 
hand. All of the so-called different forms of 
reasoning or of inference are really different 
ways of testing conclusions rather than of prov- 
ing conclusions. The conclusion always comes 
through association and then may be tested in 
any one of these four ways. 

The qualities demanded of the thinker for 
the development of the conclusion are alto- 
gether different from those desirable for testing 
the conclusion. The one demands fertility and 

197 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OP REASONING 

quickness of suggestion, the other conservatism 
in accepting the result when reached. The for- 
mer is the perquisite of youth, the latter of age. 
A mind conservative enough for testing is often 
too staid and set for new suggestions. What 
truth there may be in the theory that genius is 
allied to insanity is probably contained in the 
fact that genius and mental alienation are alike 
characterized by great fluidity in ideas and a 
wealth of associations. Genius, however, is rea- 
sonably conservative and rejects many of the 
suggestions, while in the insane there is no re- 
straint in accepting or uttering them. Many 
a slow and commonplace mind might be skilful 
in testing conclusions but never have sugges- 
tions worth testing, while many persons of 
fecund imagination are over-hasty in accepting 
conclusions. Adequate thinking obviously de- 
mands both qualities. 

The net result of the present chapter is to see 
that judgment shades over gradually so far as 
expression is concerned from propositions that 
express a single appreciation and so a single 
judgment to propositions that combine two ap- 
preciations or some mental addition to the situ- 
ation and so constitute an inference in the true 
sense. In the latter process one must distin- 

198 



INFERENCE 

guish sharply between inference or deriving the 
conclusion, and proof or testing the conclusion. 
The former always depends upon the laws of 
association, the latter begins to act only after 
the conclusion has been reached. Proof is the 
more important operation and is the one that 
has always attracted the attention of the logi- 
cian. All of the classical distinctions in rea- 
soning have considered differences in proof not 
in the derivation of the conclusion. If judg- 
ment is the equivalent in logic of perception, in- 
ference is the equivalent of association. The 
only difference is to be found in the fact that 
inference is the association considered with ref- 
erence to its truth. The prime function of logic 
is not to explain the origin of reasoning but to 
prove the truth of the conclusion when it has 
been reached. This problem must be attacked 
in the succeeding chapters. 



14 



CHAPTER VII 

PEOOF THE SYLLOGISM 

Before the nature of proof may be discussed 
intelligently it is necessary to consider the na- 
ture and effect in consciousness of general 
propositions. All forms of proof make explicit 
reference to general truths. In the deductive 
forms of proof the general statement is used to 
establish the truth of the particular conclusion, 
while in inductive reasoning general truths are 
supposed to be established on the basis of par- 
ticular observations, or of particular instances. 
We must then face the problem of how these 
general statements differ in composition, origin 
and warrant from the particular conclusions 
considered up to this time. 

By way of introduction it is well to recall 
what was said of meaning and the concept in 
an earlier chapter. There it was seen that men- 
tal processes usually, if not always, have a ref- 
erence beyond themselves, that they mean not 
one thing but many, and that it is difficult to 

200 



PEOOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

distinguish the ideas that stand for one thing 
only from those that represent classes. An 
idea, if it is a real idea, is always a type. 
It is made a type by the context in which it 
stands and by the fact that it has developed 
out of a mass of experiences, not from one 
alone. The general statement or conclusion has 
the same origin and the same character. It is 
not necessarily different in kind or composition 
from the particular statement, but it stands not 
for a particular experience but for a class, for 
several not one. It is accepted as universal. 
The basis of this acceptance is quite as likely 
to be found in the absence of some quality as 
in anything that is added. The essential ele- 
ment in the general or universal is the ac- 
ceptance of the particular mental somewhat as 
convertible into or replaceable by any other of 
the same or a similar kind. What the basis of 
the feeling of acceptance is, Wundt and the oth- 
ers who accept it do not pretend to say. It is 
undoubtedly on the same level as the represent- 
ative basis of the concept, and is connected with 
the fact that mental states are all interwoven, 
with the fact that there are paths and lines of 
association that interrelate all the various men- 
tal states. 

201 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

That the general conclusion in this sense may 
be of identically the same kind as the particular, 
is evident if one will but study the mental proc- 
esses in the simpler forms of general conclu- 
sions. The conclusions of the geometer are 
accepted as general in spite of the fact that he 
is looking at or thinking of but a single 
triangle or other figure. He uses a tri- 
angle of one size, of one particular shape, 
but expects his conclusions to hold true of all 
triangles without reference to size or shape. 
That the thinking is ordinarily with reference to 
the particular alone and that the other more 
general forms are only at the back of the mind 
if present at all is to be seen in the fact that 
one of the most difficult things to teach the 
beginner, and what now and again misleads the 
man who would probably spurn the designation 
of beginner, is to avoid making general, conclu- 
sions that will hold only for the figure that is 
before him. He insists in drawing universal 
conclusions as to triangles from an isosceles 
or equilateral triangle. In this case the inhib- 
iting effect of earlier knowledge, or of the other 
sets of premises as given in the other possible 
figures is not sufficient, and associations are not 
properly checked in the formation, or not re- 

202 



PKOOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

jected when formed. Here the statement of 
the conditions of the problem acts very much 
as the attitude or problem that controls associa- 
tions. Any conclusion is guided and controlled 
by the conditions explicitly stated, or generally 
accepted as holding for the given problem. 
When the presuppositions are changed to be- 
come more or less general, the conclusions that 
may be accepted will be correspondingly 
changed. Thus the non-Euclidean geometry 
may be regarded as related to the Euclidean 
merely in the removal of certain restrictions 
that had previously narrowed the constructions 
to harmonize with a single set of assumptions. 
Its conclusions may be regarded as related to 
the older form of the discipline in much the 
same way as the conclusions for the scalene 
triangle are related to the conclusions in ref- 
erence to the isosceles triangle. 

Very much the same relation holds between 
general and particular in the case of the in- 
ventor. When he constructs his model, he as- 
sumes constantly that what holds of his model 
or of his drawings will hold of all machines 
similarly constructed. As he develops his men- 
tal picture or his model he thinks always in 
terms of the one substance, the one arrange- 

203 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

ment, but there is the added belief that what 
holds for the one will hold equally for all cases 
that are essentially the same. We get back here 
again to the problem of belief. What we be- 
lieve to be general is general for us whether it 
be pictured in one way or another. As in the 
concept there is no essential relation between 
the mental content and the use that we make 
of it. It is the use that is made of the con- 
clusion, not the way it is represented, that de- 
termines whether we are dealing with that con- 
clusion as an individual or as typical, and so 
general or even universal. Anything from the 
clearest picture of the individual, through im- 
ages of all degrees of vagueness to the mere word 
and in some individuals to so much less that 
there seem to be no pictures whatsoever, may 
constitute the mental imagery. Whether there 
be much or little depends upon the individual 
type and is in no way essential to the generality 
of the conclusion. The most clearly imaged 
may be the most general, while the individual 
in whom the representation is practically lack- 
ing, if we can call his mental state representa- 
tion at all, may have ideas that are altogether 
individual. This statement holds both for the 
conclusion that is intended to be general and 

204 



PEOOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

for the major premise of the ordinary syllo- 
gism. The statement "all men are mortal" 
may be represented in exactly the same way, 
may be accompanied by exactly the same kind 
of imagery, as the conclusion that the angles 
of a right triangle are equal to two right angles, 
with the obvious changes required by the dif- 
ference in subject matter. Very probably since 
reasoning of this character is almost always 
merely for the sake of expression, the only con- 
sciousness will be of the words in which the 
statement is formulated. 

When we return to the question of how con- 
clusions once attained are to be justified, we 
find that fundamentally we are again face to 
face with our old problem of belief. The proc- 
ess of justifying a conclusion is primarily just 
by raising in the mind of the hearer or of the 
thinker a belief that the statement is true. The 
ultimate test of truth is that someone believes, 
and the task of assuring the truth of a statement 
is the task of making the individuals concerned 
believe the proposition that one is endeavoring 
to establish. Historically, two sorts of proof 
have been distinguished, the deductive and the 
inductive. The one derives the truth of the 
particular from some general principle already 

205 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

accepted by speaker and listener, the other sup- 
ports a general proposition by specific instances. 
Each of these general classes has two lesser 
varieties. As forms of deduction one may dis- 
tinguish the syllogism and the less rigid form 
of referring new to old, analogy. Under in- 
duction one may distinguish induction proper, 
which draws its proof from instances already 
known, and experiment which puts the sugges- 
tion to the test in some new way. These differ- 
ent forms of proof may be used in support of 
any conclusion and in fact more than one is 
ordinarily used to support any conclusion that 
is drawn. The methods are rather mutually 
helpful than mutually exclusive. 

The syllogism as the oldest and best known 
of these may be discussed first. It assumes that 
the conclusion may be established by referring 
it to some one general truth. The general truth 
is expressed in the major premise, the minor 
premise serves to relate the conclusion to it. 
An instance may be found in the familiar 

"All men are mortal, 
Socrates is a man, 
Therefore, Socrates is mortal ' ' 

of the texts on formal logic. It is unfortunate 

206 



PROOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

that the instances of logic are nearly all taken 
out of their natural context in this way, and 
are treated as if each were complete in itself. 
As a matter of fact real reasoning always grows 
out of a particular purpose and always serves 
some practical end. The purpose, the ultimate 
end and even the particular setting are as much 
part of the reasoning as the conclusion and the 
premises. To understand the reasoning one 
must supply a context and this is not easy for 
the syllogism cited above or for many of the 
instances chosen by the familiar treatises of 
formal logic. One can think of trying to prove 
the mortality of Socrates only if one were a 
member of a band of assassins plotting his 
death or were arguing against him before the 
Areopagus and even in that case the term mortal 
would be used figuratively as synonymous with 
fallibility. Taken literally the major premise 
would add little, if anything, in this case to the 
force of the conclusion. 

It will be well then to turn to some instance 
in which the context may be assumed to be 
known and study the relation of the syllogism 
to the conclusion and to the action that might 
result from it. Professor James' example of 
the smoky lamp will do as well as another. A 

207 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SEASONING 

servant, presumably ignorant, stops the smok- 
ing of a lamp by inserting a bit of wood under 
one edge of the chimney to admit more air. 
The actual process of reasoning or inferring will 
be completed when the movement is made or the 
idea presents itself. The suggestion may come 
as a memory from some similar instance, by 
mere chance trial, or it matters not in what way. 
The syllogism begins only after the suggestion 
has been made. Even then it does not always 
appear but will be supplied only when someone 
asks why it was done or the thinker becomes 
curious to understand the improvement that has 
been made. In each case the proof grows out of 
some preliminary doubt. The explanation is 
here in terms of some earlier accepted general 
truth that is implied in the act or thought. 

That any process of justification can be given 
the syllogistic form may be illustrated by the 
smoky lamp and its remedy. In this instance 
the syllogism would be made up of a major 
premise: "The admission of an increased 
amount of oxygen will tend to make a lamp stop 
smoking." Then: "Inserting a bit of wood 
under the edge of the chimney will admit more 
oxygen." " Therefore insertion of a bit of 
wood under the edge of the chimney will tend 

208 



PEOOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

to prevent the lamp from smoking. ' ' A further 
fact to be considered here is that it is never 
possible to formulate any set of premises that 
will exhaust all the proofs that might be given. 
We might make our syllogism upon a principal 
that is even more fundamental. Smokiness 
may be prevented by any means that will 
prevent an excess of hydrocarbons over oxygen 
in the process of combustion. Admission of an 
adequate amount of air will prevent this excess. 
Therefore the admission of an adequate amount 
of air will prevent smokiness. The major 
premise here requires other syllogisms to jus- 
tify it and each can be made to depend upon 
some other in ever extending regressus. The 
regressus will extend not merely in a straight 
line but at many points there will be a bifurca- 
tion so that we shall have diverging lines of 
syllogisms that between them will include most 
of our knowledge of chemistry and then will 
probably depend upon much experience that has 
not been formulated. For instance we would in 
strict logic have to justify not alone the entrance 
of more air but the use of a bit of wood to 
support the chimney and this would require a 
syllogism for the strength of the wood. These 
again would divide into pairs that would con- 

209 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

sider the strength of the wood and the weight 
of the chimney each in a separate syllogism. 
Other syllogisms still would be required to 
guarantee us against the danger of using a 
combustible material, and that would consider 
the size of the particle and its relation to the 
size of chimney, rate of passage of air, etc^ 
etc. 

It would be very difficult to say that any one 
set of these premises would be more necessary 
or satisfactory than any other, and if any were 
used it would be difficult to prophesy in advance 
which of the many sets would be chosen as the 
more important. It is altogether probable that 
one set would be chosen at one time, another at 
another, all depending upon the difficulty that 
chanced to be prominent in the mind of the ob- 
server at the moment. Certainly, not all of 
the possible syllogisms would be formulated in 
any case and if they were they would run 
through a large part of our knowledge of the 
chemistry and physics of combustion, and would 
probably raise questions many of which are not 
yet definitely answered by science. 

In any case one would have in the major 
premise merely a statement of some general 
truth already known to both speaker and lis- 

310 



PKOOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

tener. For some reason this general truth 
serves to give additional warrant to the conclu- 
sion; one is undoubtedly more ready to grant 
the assertion after the major premise has been 
suggested than before. The syllogism increases 
the belief of the hearer and of the thinker him- 
self in the conclusion that has been already at- 
tained. To understand how this is possible one 
must turn back to the result of the examina- 
tion of the nature and origin of the general 
statement. 

The effect of the general statement is not 
direct. Certainly no new knowledge springs 
into being with the formulation of the major 
premise either in the mind of the thinker or of 
the doubter who questions how or why he con- 
cludes as he does. One is no more certain that 
Socrates or any other man will die, after he 
has been assured that all men are mortal, than 
he was before the statement was made. If the 
knowledge that finds formulation in the state- 
ment was not already in mind there would be no 
acceptance of the statement when it had been 
made. If one knew nothing of higher mathe- 
matics the citation of a differential equation of 
the third or fourth order would not add as- 
surance to a doubtful physical proposition. I 

211 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

mean, of course, real assurance. It is true that 
one ignorant of mathematics or trained only in 
the lower stages has a respect for an equation 
that will lead him to pretend assent whenever 
an equation is cited against him; the equation 
will silence, even if it does not win him to com- 
plete acquiescence in the proposition. This 
however is not the effect of the major premise 
that is valuable. One would certainly not be 
said to grasp the force of the argument in a case 
of that kind, and an argument has no real effect 
unless its force is actually grasped. One might 
even give formal demonstration that one could 
not know the general statement unless all the 
particular instances under it, and hence the con- 
clusion were also already known. It is evident 
then that the major premise does not confirm 
the knowledge in the sense that it adds some- 
thing that was not present before, or that it 
adds new knowledge. The major premise is no 
more accepted on authority than is the conclu- 
sion. If it were accepted in that way we should 
not be dealing with reasoning in the true sense, 
at least in the sense in which it is used in every 
day life. For in every day life we question the 
truth of the premises just as strictly as we ques- 
tion the conclusion and in much the same way. 

212 



PROOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

Only in classes in formal logic does one say let 
us assume that such and such statements are 
true and see what follows from them. In prac- 
tical life an argument of this kind is likely to be 
met with a howl of protest that the assumptions 
themselves are wrong. Even in formal logic 
more care is taken than the extreme formalist 
would give us to believe, to be sure that the 
premises square with experience, not of course 
that it is assumed to make any difference to the 
method, but to avoid confusing the youthful 
mind. All this evidence that the major premise 
adds nothing new to the conclusion would tend 
to deprive it of any useful function, while as 
a matter of fact it has a place, is used, if not 
in the way that it is usually said to be. It is 
certainly true that you can make plausible to 
your objector a conclusion that he at first de- 
clines to accept if you will formulate for him 
the general principle under which it is sub- 
sumed. And your own assurance grows with 
clear and definite reference of your conclusion 
to already established principles. 

What gives this feeling of satisfaction exist- 
ence of which cannot be disputed or denied is not 
at all easy to say and so far as I know no alto- 
gether satisfactory explanation has ever been 

213 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

given. Were we Platonists or even did we hold 
to the metaphysical theory of the English 
Hegelians in a world of universals or a uni- 
versal world that existed apart from the more 
mundane consciousness of every day life, we 
should have no trouble. The process would be 
one of transition from the concrete and indi- 
vidual world to the world of absolute verities. 
As psychologists however we are bound to 
attempt an empirical explanation, and this is 
the more enforced upon us since we have found 
that the character of the general statement that 
will be believed is colored by the earlier expe- 
rience of the individual who accepts it. On 
this empirical level it seems that the general 
statement when made tends to suggest older 
connections, older bits of experience that have 
already been concerned in the development of 
the conclusion but which seem to gain veri- 
similitude when formulated in words. The 
associations, that were previously latent, now 
seem to add their quota to the vague feeling, 
and while not even then explicitly conscious 
they endow the new fact with a feeling of being 
accepted into the system of knowledge. Then 
there is something like the world of universals 
of the Hegelians when framed on an empirical 

214 



PROOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

basis. Laws and principles of connection like 
the concept develop as types or standards about 
which the individual experiences cluster. As 
experiences accumulate they seem to crystallize 
into general statements toward which all other 
facts tend to gravitate. They persist while the 
particular elements out of which they were 
compounded disappear. Their persistence is 
probably due to the large number of connections 
that are made between them and other expe- 
riences. The general, the type, has been seen 
a vast number of times while the individuals 
have been in consciousness but once. They are 
then always likely to be recalled, or at least the 
likelihood of their recall is very much greater 
than the likelihood of the recall of any one of 
the elements that have gradually given rise to 
it. All of these associates too probably in some 
degree persist and tend to give increased prob- 
ability to the general. 

In fact, when the forms have once developed 
there is always a tendency to have them take 
the place of the particular even in perception. 
Whenever one hears a new theory propounded 
there is always a tendency to say that is the 
theory of so and so with certain elements of 
the theory of some one else. The deviations 
15 215. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

from the well-known formulae will not be no- 
ticed at all. Much the same tendency is seen in 
the case even of single objects. New colors 
are referred to colors for which we have well- 
developed names, and the differences are not 
appreciated. In case one is presenting a new 
device to a man who is familiar with many 
similar ones there is the greatest difficulty in 
making him see that this is really new and not 
another variation of an already familiar pat- 
tern. The same holds equally of scientific the- 
ories. Nothing is more usual or more provok- 
ing to the man who believes that he has some 
new explanation or solution of an old problem 
than to be told that his is but one of the many 
deviations of an old familiar theory. We are 
all familiar with the man who assures us that 
all systems of philosophy are to be found in 
Plato or Aristotle. But, however completely we 
may assent to the general proposition, it is none 
the less discouraging when your own particular 
fondly-nourished deviation finds satisfactory 
resting place in the mind of your critic in one 
of the classical philosophers. However much 
the persistence of the type and the overshadow- 
ing dominance of the type may be deprecated in 
the particular instance, it is a fact that these 

216 



PEOOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

types develop as a framework for all knowledge 
and that any new bit of knowledge can be given 
separate existence only at the expense of con- 
siderable pain and repetition. Deprecate as we 
may the resulting conservatism of human 
thought, the tendency for the type to persist at 
the expense of the individual is undoubtedly a 
labor-saving device, and without some ten- 
dency of the kind all progress in knowledge 
would be impossible. The dominance of the 
type with room for variation certainly gives 
the most satisfactory results for retention, in- 
terpretation and progress. 

If we get back then to our present problem 
of why the general statement, the formulation 
of the major premise, gives rise to the feeling 
of confidence in the truth of the conclusion, we 
find our answer in the fact that the general 
statement represents the type, and that the 
actually remembered framework of our knowl- 
edge is forged out of typical statements. If we 
ask how the framework, or the elements of the 
framework give rise to a feeling of satisfaction 
that is denied to the particulars out of which the 
typical has developed, we find the explanation 
in the fact that the general has hundreds or 
thousands of connections where the individual 

217 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

has but one. The associates too are probably 
not altogether mere dead potentialities but are 
in some way reflected in the consciousness of the 
moment, in vague feelings or in the absence of 
inhibitions and their corresponding conscious- 
ness, that attach to the particular. At present 
the feeling cannot be defined; probably it can 
never be defined except as a vague feeling of 
satisfaction. We are aware of the resulting 
confidence in the truth of the statement and 
the accompanying readiness to proceed to ac- 
tion. This characteristic of the general is 
closely related on the one hand to the feeling 
that accompanies the concept or the meaning, 
and to the feeling of belief on the other. All 
three are important for their functions and are 
known by their functions rather than by the 
structures, the feelings that accompany them. 
All three too undoubtedly find their explanation 
in very much the same cerebral and psycholog- 
ical conditions and antecedents. In short, the 
major premise or the general statement that 
justifies the particular conclusion, gives it a 
warrant not because it adds something to the 
particular or because its truth rests upon any 
other basis than the truth of the particular, but 
because it gives greater definiteness to the ex- 

218 



PEOOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

periences that warranted and induced the con- 
clusion, and furnishes a resting point for the 
accumulated experiences to focus about and 
start from. Its value is psychological not log- 
ical, is primarily static rather than dynamic. It 
warrants, it does not induce; but the warrant 
comes from a rearrangement, or different action 
of forces effective whether the syllogism be for- 
mulated or not, and whether the major premise 
be expressed or not. 

That the truth of the major premise and ulti- 
mately the truth of the conclusion should rest 
upon the belief process, should reduce finally to 
harmony with experience does not seem so rad- 
ical if one recalls that the tests of the logician 
so far as they have been formulated are not so 
very different. Certainly formulations of the 
principle of sufficient reason are no more defi- 
nite, and if analyzed would be found to be very 
largely made up of the fact that men in general 
were ready to accept them, believed them. 
There is sufficient reason when we are con- 
vinced, and we are convinced when we believe. 
Certain beliefs are more widely accepted than 
others and so are said to be fundamental. That 
means, probably, that they are connected with 
a larger number of experiences, and that the 

219 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

system as a whole would be more disorganized 
if they were rejected. It is belief, nevertheless, 
and nothing more. The belief has merely been 
highly developed and closely connected with 
many important facts and experiences. 

The test of the inconceivability of the oppo- 
site is still more evidently but a phase of the 
belief problem. To say that the opposite is out 
of harmony with experience is but a roundabout 
way of asserting that all experience reinforces 
the proposition in question. It is belief as- 
serted by two negatives and put in very strong 
terms. The more familiar tests of truth then 
reduce to our principle of belief with the excep- 
tion of Pascal's clearness of ideas and Hume's 
closeness of association. Even clearness might 
be said to depend upon the reinforcement of 
other experiences and so to reduce to the same 
principle as belief. Hume's closeness of asso- 
ciation has been tested heretofore and has not 
been found to agree with the facts. Many of 
the closest and strongest associations are unfor- 
tunate and must be rejected. Closeness of asso- 
ciation ensures a hearing for the resulting sug- 
gestions, but like the slips of speech they are 
very likely to be refused acceptance when tested. 
Practically all tests of truth that have played 

220 



PEOOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

a part in history would reduce in one form or 
another to belief. This harmonizes with our 
own conclusion that the truth of an inference 
or of a major premise rests upon its being be- 
lieved. 

If the major premise warrants the truth of 
the conclusion because it is an expression of 
related and ordered experiences of the same 
class but of earlier acquirement, and the course 
of associations that give rise to the inference 
is in terms of large masses of related experi- 
ences, and belief is a result of the interaction 
of wide ranges of earlier experiences with the 
particular experience, it would seem that there 
might be some close relationship between all 
three operations. In the instance of the smoky 
lamp, only those associates will be favored by 
the educated mind that have some relation to 
the increased air supply. For an ignorant per- 
son the difficulty with the light might recall 
a host of older remedies, such for example as 
putting a screen about the light to shield it 
from a strong draft. In the intelligent mind 
this would be excluded unconsciously by the 
circumstances that indicate too little rather 
than too much oxygen and by numerous related 
experiences and facts. The same experiences 

221 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

then that confirm the conclusion when reached, 
guide it during the course of its development. 
To that extent and to that extent alone it may 
be said that the conditions and facts that are 
expressed in the premises are also the factors or 
are related to the factors that generate the 
conclusion. In so far one might say that the 
influences that implicitly guide the conclusion 
find explicit expression in the premises. But 
even granting this it must be added that the 
guidance is in terms of vague and ill-defined 
masses of experience not by definitely formu- 
lated propositions, and that at the most one 
can say only that the experience that guides 
is later formulated in the premises. It was not 
thus formulated at the moment it was exerting 
its influence. 

It must be insisted too that the premises 
contain only an inconsiderable part of the 
knowledge that was guiding the suggestion. In 
the case in question the conclusion would be 
in terms of the effects not merely of the com- 
position of the air and the consequent results of 
the increased draft, but also in terms of the 
knowledge of the combustibility of the substance 
used as a support and its nearness to the flame, 
of the strength of the substance and its prob- 

222 



PROOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

able adequateness to support the weight of the 
chimney and of innumerable other considera- 
tions. Each of these might be made the major 
premise of a syllogism and used to prove the 
truth of the conclusion, but only one would be 
so used. This is the limitation of the syllogistic 
proof. It does not justify the conclusion by all 
of the means that have led to its production, 
nor by all of the elements that might serve to give 
it warrant. The premise that is chosen in prac- 
tice is one that meets the objection of the person 
actually present or that serves to remove the 
immediate doubt of the thinker. In the in- 
stances chosen by the texts the major premise 
is assumed to meet the most likely objection, 
but it must always be a justification on one only 
of the many possible grounds that might be 
offered and that are needed to prove it com- 
pletely. It can state but one of the many gen- 
eral truths that were implicitly involved in de- 
veloping it. 

The process of justification is also closely 
allied to the belief process. In fact the ulti- 
mate end of proof is to make the conclusion 
believed. The factors that give belief are the 
related experiences implicit in the control of 
the development of the conclusion and in part 

223 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

become explicit in the proof. Ordinarily there 
is no overt question of belief, the conclusion is 
accepted without hesitation and one proceeds to 
act upon it or takes the next step in the opera- 
tion. One proves or attempts to justify only 
when preliminary doubt arises. This proof is 
in terms of the same sort of experience as that 
which is the basis of the tacit belief. As has 
been said these factors that work ordinarily 
without giving other sign of their presence than 
belief, work more effectively to give belief when 
they are stated in the explicitly formulated uni- 
versal proposition. The forces that give belief 
are on the whole the forces that guide infer- 
ence. The premises represent one of the 
masses of experience so far as it has been crys- 
tallized in the single statement. The three 
forces are in part identical. It might be re- 
marked that the ordinary consciousness of the 
truth of any proposition or suggestion is more 
likely to lie in the feeling that the one sugges- 
tion is false rather than in the explicit approval 
of the correct conclusion. As suggestion after 
suggestion appears it is rejected until finally 
some one comes to which no objection can be 
raised. Here as everywhere the process that 
is definitely conscious is doubt and the conclu- 

224 



PEOOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

sion that is accepted is practically without pecu- 
liar sign or mark. 

Eeasoning and the justification of reasoning 
may have all degrees of definiteness. Ordina- 
rily the accuracy of the adjustment of means to 
end goes hand in hand with the clearness of the 
justification. The first performance of any act 
of reasoning is very much like Lamb's fable of 
burning down the house to roast a pig. Some 
solution is recalled in the rough that will solve 
the present problem, but the essentials of the 
operation are not recognized. In the operation 
that we have used as an illustration it may be 
recalled merely that in times past raising one 
side of the chimney has stopped the smoke, and 
no other reason can be given. At the next stage 
it may be recalled that admitting more air will 
make a stove burn as well, and this general prin- 
ciple will support the other and serve to make 
the understanding of the operation more defi- 
nite. From this point onward to the knowledge 
of the chemistry of combustion and of the com- 
position of the air, all stages of definiteness of 
explanation may be recognized. Each stage is 
a warrant for the conclusion. It is the definite- 
ness of the warrant and the degree to which 
the essentials are picked out that varies in each 

225 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

case. The more scientific the thinker, the more 
explicit must be the proof. 

Analogy, the second form of deductive proof, 
has several points of similarity to the syllogism. 
Analogy deserves the more attention because, 
although it finds no place in the traditional 
logic, it is nevertheless the method that is per- 
haps most used in the arguments of every day 
life. The essence of the proof by analogy is 
the reference of a new or disputed statement to 
some older and accepted principle to which it 
is similar, but with which it is not identical. An 
instance is the use of the discovery or inven- 
tion of wireless telegraphy to support a belief 
in telepathy. In the new form of transmission, 
messages are carried through the ether without 
special connecting wires or other paths. It is 
argued from this that the human mind might 
similarly send out some form of energy through 
the ether that would affect other minds rightly 
tuned to the sending individual. Without at- 
tempting to comment on the sufficiency of the 
proof, there can be no doubt that for most 
minds an analogy of this kind will strengthen 
belief in the fact supported by the analogy. 
The degree of belief that is aroused will depend 
upon the closeness of the similarity between 

226 



PEOOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

the statement to be proved and the accepted fact 
that is cited to prove it. Where the two are 
closely similar, the proof will be regarded as 
strong ; where the difference is great and affects 
vital parts of the analogy, the proof will be 
weak down to the vanishing point. In the argu- 
ment for telepathy just mentioned, the case 
would be much stronger if one could point to 
anything in the human brain that corresponded 
in any degree to the transmitting or receiving 
apparatus of the Marconi system. The simi- 
larity would thereby be considerably increased. 
But the lack of an essential point in the simi- 
larity is by no means fatal to the belief that is 
engendered by the argument. One inclined to 
believe would insist that there was still a pos- 
sibility that some way of sending out the influ- 
ence might be discovered later, or that it might 
be too delicate ever to be discovered, but still 
exist, and be proved to exist by its action. As 
the negative of a proposition is very difficult 
to establish, the force of the analogy could never 
be entirely destroyed. 

At the same time it is not possible to reduce 
the analogy to syllogistic form. One may even 
say that there is no possibility of giving rigid 
proof of any kind by analogy. It is always 

227 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

possible that 'the similarity may be elusive or 
in a non-essential. It is always at least possible 
that the discovery necessary to reduce the simi- 
larity to identity may never be made, and at 
the best until the discovery is made there is 
no certainty attaching to the proof. From this 
point of view it is remarkable that it should 
find so large a place in reasoning, both popular 
and scientific. Why does it give so definite a 
warrant? "Why does it arouse belief? If we 
are to draw a distinction between logic and psy- 
chology, we must look to psychology rather than 
to logic for our answer. But on the other side, 
the nature of the warrant for the proof by anal- 
ogy is not so very different from the warrant 
for the belief in the syllogism itself. Both 
draw their justification from the results of 
earlier experience definitely formulated in laws 
and maxims. We have seen both in the dis- 
cussion of belief and in the discussion of the 
proof given by the syllogism that we are willing 
to accept anything that can be united with the 
general mass of our knowledge. Analogy 
serves to give this union by assimilating the 
new or doubted proposition to some law or prin- 
ciple that has already been established and is 
accepted by both speaker and listener. The 

228 



PROOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

human mind is so anxious to get all experience 
arranged in some sort of order that it is none 
too close in its scrutiny of any scheme that will 
permit a systematic ordering of its knowledge. 
In this respect, reasoning from analogy is but 
one expression of the tendency to take over all 
experiences into the predeveloped types of which 
we have made so much throughout. There is 
no real acceptance of any fact until it has found 
a resting place in some concept or law, in the 
framework of our knowledge. The result of 
accepting an analogy is to dispose of a new fact 
under a familiar head. It is put into an old 
class where it may be easily handled. Until 
disposed of in some such way, the fact always 
causes unrest; there is relief when it is given 
a place, even temporarily. Analogies then find 
the readier acceptance from the fact that they 
furnish an anodyne to thought. They give re- 
pose where otherwise would be conflict and 
irritation. 

It must not be supposed, however, that rea- 
soning from analogy always or even usually con- 
duces to fallacious conclusions. In fact the 
warrant that is provided by analogy is but a 
stage removed from the warrant that is given 
by the syllogism. As has been seen, the only 

229 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

warrant for the truth of the major premise of 
the syllogism is the fact that it is believed, that 
it has been wrought into the framework of our 
knowledge and has been found to harmonize 
with the other elements of that knowledge. 
Eeference of the conclusion to the major prem- 
ise has value only as it serves to connect it with 
something that had previously been explicitly 
accepted. Proof by analogy is identical with 
proof through the syllogism in that both give 
truth only through connection with something 
that has itself been accepted as true. The only 
difference lies in the nature of the reference. 
In the syllogism the conclusion is made a par- 
ticular instance under a general proposition; 
in analogy the conclusion is asserted to be 
merely similar to the general proposition or to 
some other accepted particular. This differ- 
ence is slight when the analogy is close. For 
the particulars that are referred to the general 
are not always identical with it. If they were 
identical there would be no need for the refer- 
ence. If the analogy is close, there may be as 
much similarity between the conclusion to be 
proved and the accepted law to which it is re- 
ferred as there is between the particular 
and the general to which it is referred 

230 



PROOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

by the syllogism, all the more if the syl- 
logism be somewhat loose. In close analogy 
we approximate the syllogism. In the less rigid 
forms of syllogism we approximate the argu- 
ment from analogy. The dividing line is 
easier to draw than in most of the distinctions 
that we have investigated, but just at the divid- 
ing line it is not always easy to say whether 
an argument is a very close analogy or a some- 
what loose syllogism. At the very least, it may 
be asserted without fear of contradiction that 
what gives plausibility to the analogy is the 
same sort of general statement that affords 
proof in the syllogism. The two forms of rea- 
soning belong in the same class, and ultimately 
draw their validity from the same source. 

In view of the somewhat scattered treatment, 
it may be well to cast a glance back over the 
discussion of inference and deductive proof. 
First we define inference as the process of im- 
proving or changing the given situation, either 
actually or in imagination. Judgment furnishes 
the appreciation of the situation, inference the 
improvement. If, as is usually the case, the 
inference arises from the blocking of some 
habitual action by a difficulty, judgment is the 
appreciation of the difficulty, inference the dis- 
16 231 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

eovery of a method to obviate the difficulty when 
appreciated. The psychological operations that 
give rise to the imagined improvement are the 
laws of association controlled and guided by 
the attitude of the moment, by the mental con- 
text. But the more essential part of the opera- 
tion, if degrees of essentiality are to be recog- 
nized, is to be found in the operation of selecting 
from the solutions offered those that fit the par- 
ticular set of circumstances. Often one tries 
various suggestions until one is finally found 
that promises to be suitable to the situation. 
When the problem is merely imagined, the ope- 
ration of discovering a solution is not unlike 
that of Professor Thorndike's cats in escaping 
from a box. One imagined solution after an- 
other is tried until one comes that promises to 
work and this is then accepted. The origin 
of the suggestion is probably not always due to 
chance, since the correct solution of the problem 
arises only in the mind that has the right sort 
of knowledge and is at the moment in the right 
attitude toward the knowledge. Suggestions 
may present themselves in any mind through 
bare mechanical association, but in most cases 
the association is guided by large elements of 
experience that insure or at least make prob- 

232 



PEOOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

able that the correct solution will present itself. 
Distinct from the origin of the suggested im- 
provement is the process of testing. An infer- 
ence, no matter how it may have originated, 
must be tested before it is accepted. The test- 
ing is one phase of the belief problem. What 
harmonizes with experience will be accepted. 
The experience that tests is in large measure 
the same experience that generates the improve- 
ment. In most solutions of the problem there 
is no thought of the truth because nothing pre- 
vents the immediate acceptance ; the conclusion 
is in complete harmony with the knowledge of 
the individual. In fact, in many cases there is 
no consciousness at all. It is only when there 
is some check, some doubt, that the testing is 
conscious. When the check comes, we make 
explicit reference to earlier experience as it has 
been formulated in a general law. This refer- 
ence may be formal as we find it in the syllogism, 
it may be informal as is more usual in every-day 
life. In either case the effect is the same. 
Some crystallization of early experience is 
called to witness. If someone questions your 
use of tungsten to close an electric circuit when 
some emergency arises, you may either con- 
struct a syllogism with "all metals conduct," as 

233 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

the major, "tungsten is a metal," as the minor, 
or what is more likely you would simply say, 
"tungsten is a metal" and let him supply his 
own major premise. The effect in either case is 
the same. Belief is made to attach to the con- 
clusion by connecting it with some earlier for- 
mulated general principle. That in its turn de- 
rives its truth only from the experience that 
it formulates. That an explicit formulation of 
the knowledge that is implicit both in the con- 
trol of the association and in the immediate 
acceptance of the result should give greater 
assurance is a fact on the same level as the 
feeling of definiteness that attaches to the type. 
It is to be noted that the syllogism and anal- 
ogy apply not to the development of the infer- 
ence but to its proof, and even then do not have 
a place in the mental operation unless the con- 
clusion is questioned after it has been formu- 
lated. Deduction is a method of proof, not of 
reasoning. General conclusions have much the 
same character as particular conclusions. The 
method of production is the same, very often 
the imagery is the same. The only difference 
is that the restrictions of the particular process 
are removed. The general is merely the par- 
ticular as the typical. The process of inferring 

234 



PEOOF— THE SYLLOGISM 

in general is the same as the process of inferring 
in the particular. The only difference is that 
the starting point and the conclusion, the inter- 
pretation and the improvement, are typical 
rather than particular. 



CHAPTEE VIII 

THE NATURE OP INDUCTIVE PROOF 

The proof most favored by the formal logi- 
cian, the logician in general in fact, is the de- 
ductive, particularly the syllogism. It is prob- 
able, however, that science and popular thought 
place the emphasis upon induction and for sci- 
ence particularly upon experiment. It is true 
that the ordinary argument in a cross roads 
store is pervaded by reference to high-sounding 
general principles, but even more frequent is 
reference to some particular instance as proof 
of a general principle. Inductive proof differs 
from deductive primarily in that while the one 
ordinarily seeks the warrant for a general state- 
ment in a series of particulars, the latter finds 
justification for the particular conclusion in a 
general law. This statement is to be modified 
in part since the conclusion in deduction is fre- 
quently general and the suggestion to be jus- 
tified by induction is now and again particular 
in form. The justification is, however, in the 

236 



NATURE OF INDUCTIVE PEOOF 

one by reference to a general statement, in the 
other by reference to a number of particular 
observations. We may again emphasize the 
statement that the difference between induction 
and deduction is always in the sort of proof 
that is offered, very seldom in the way in which 
the conclusion is reached. The conclusion in 
induction is given by the same sort of associa- 
tive laws that suggest the law that is proved 
deductively. The law may be suggested by 
something actually observed, it may come from 
some other bit of knowledge as was true of 
Darwin's doctrine of natural selection. In 
either case the solution of the problem that sug- 
gests itself is proved by the accumulation of a 
large number of particular instances that can 
be explained by it or that are in harmony with 
it. 

The way in which the general statement is 
referred to the particulars for its justification 
need not concern us here, since no special form 
or technique of reference has been developed as 
was true of the syllogism. But one must ask 
how it is possible to prove general statements 
by particular instances. As has been fre- 
quently pointed out enumeration can never be 
exhaustive. Even if it includes every event of 

237 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

a given sort up to the present, it is not possible 
to say anything whatever about the future, 
unless one goes beyond the actual warrant of 
the enumeration. Inductions are never com- 
plete and so in strictness prove nothing. As a 
matter of fact all this discussion is beside the 
point for most of the proof in induction comes 
not from the particular as particular; the real 
value of the instance is as a type, as the expres- 
sion of a previously established law or prin- 
ciple. The necessity for choosing many in- 
stances rather than one is that the different 
instances contain the typical principle in con- 
nection with different subsidiary and irrelevant 
details. To make sure that the details in other 
cases are irrelevant the typical part must be 
seen in as many different connections as possible. 
One would not care to find many instances of 
selection in the same species in Darwin's case. 
Or were one studying the structure of mam- 
mals in reference to some point one would not 
care to examine many animals of the same 
species. Except for the possible individual 
variation on minor points one would be content 
with a thorough examination of one. Still truer 
would this be of the magnetic properties of iron. 
If one knew the chemical composition of the 

23S 



NATURE OF INDUCTIVE PEOOF 

iron he would be content to investigate a single 
specimen thoroughly and use his results as 
true for all specimens. Were his results to 
show deviations he would assume that there had 
been some change in the conditions of the ex- 
periment or some inaccuracy in the observation. 
He would accept the result as true for all speci- 
mens and conditions of the type. Confidence 
comes, then, not from the number of observa- 
tions, but from the closeness with which the 
things observed may be assumed to represent 
typical conditions, to embody types. If the 
objects observed are not typical, the observa- 
tion is valueless. 

Inductions from another point of view de- 
pend not at all upon the results of enumeration, 
but upon the relations of a general statement to 
other subordinate general statements that have 
been established partly by observation, partly 
by the agreement of observations with each 
other over long stretches of time and under 
numerous different typical conditions. For ex- 
ample, the favorite major premise of the formal 
logician "all men are mortal" could never be 
established by mere enumeration. It does de- 
pend upon observations undoubtedly, but these 
are of the conditions of life and subordinate 

239 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF KEASONING 

laws of that character rather than of vital sta- 
tistics. We know that man must die from our 
study of the conditions of waste and repair in 
the organism and from the suitability of the 
animal tissues as culture media for pathogenic 
organisms. Each of these laws is the outcome 
of long observation and experiment, but fully as 
much from the observation of animal tissues as 
of human. Each of the statements represents a 
large mass of experiences that are harmonized 
with each other in the statement and are also 
known to harmonize with all relevant knowl- 
edge. Induction here approaches very close to 
deduction. 

In one other particular are the separate ob- 
servations that together constitute induction 
like deduction. Each perception has been 
seen in an earlier chapter to involve the results 
of accumulated experiences that unite to consti- 
tute meanings. Pure observation under the 
most favorable circumstances does not repre- 
sent the entrance to consciousness of purely un- 
biased and totally new facts; rather is it an 
occasion for the rearousal of earlier developed 
generalizations, under the influence of the prob- 
lem that dominates consciousness at the moment 
and on the occasion of the stimulus that presents 

240 



NATUKE OF INDUCTIVE PEOOF 

itself to the sense organ. When one turns to 
observe events in the external world to test 
some new suggestion, one sees objects that 
would not be noticed did one not have the prob- 
lem, and one sees in them elements that would 
not otherwise be observed. The results of the 
perception are interpreted by earlier acquired 
meanings and laws. Neither need affect the 
validity of the observation except favorably, 
but they undoubtedly make one see what would 
otherwise pass unseen. It must not be assumed 
either that the stimulus is merely the occasion 
for the rearousal of earlier generalizations and 
crystallizations of experience. The new per- 
ception, while largely the embodiment of early 
knowledge, in nearly every case modifies the 
older mass, or at the very least the old is con- 
firmed anew by the fact that it fits into the new 
setting satisfactorily. 

Not only does the earlier accepted general 
principle contribute in part to the content of the 
perception, but the validity of the observation 
will depend very largely upon the degree of 
agreement between the new and the old. "When 
the new fact does not find a resting point in 
the body of knowledge it seems to baffle, it is 
not understood and is with difficulty accepted. 

241 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

A very good illustration of this is furnished 
by the results of the experiments of Michelson 
and Morley that demonstrate that there is no 
ether drift, no displacement of the light waves 
by the motion of the earth through space. The 
fact is established as completely as any fact 
may be established, but apparently it can not 
be related to the accepted general principles 
in the same field — it stands alone. Two alter- 
natives apparently present themselves. An 
attempt has recently been made to develop a 
new mathematics that shall include this fact 
with others in its explanations. That is, one 
may modify the old principles to include the 
new fact. "Were the observations less trust- 
worthy the other alternative would be to reject 
the results and keep to the old principles. As 
it stands without relation to old principles it is 
not understood and stands as a perpetual thorn 
in the side of the physicist, a dire foreboding 
that somehow his developed system contains a 
flaw that may bring disaster to the whole. In- 
duction is like deduction in its dependence upon 
earlier developed general laws and meanings. 
Even the most highly developed and most 
carefully guarded form of induction, experi- 
ment, shows the same dependence upon earlier 



NATURE OF INDUCTIVE PROOF 

developed laws and principles. Experiments 
perhaps more completely than observations 
grow out of suggestions developed in advance. 
Experiment is a form of proof. As with all 
sorts of proof experiments are made only when 
the suggested conclusion is in some way in 
doubt or when alternative possibilities present 
themselves. Experiments are not made at hap- 
hazard, but one usually has a definite expecta- 
tion of the result that is to be obtained or of 
the range within which the result will lie. One 
not only has a definite problem in mind when 
the experiment is begun but ordinarily has an 
idea of what the answer is to be. The only case 
in which the results are unforeseen is in ex- 
periments to obtain exact measurements. Even 
here the problem controls the course of the 
experiment and the values are assumed to lie 
within certain ranges. It is true of course that 
occasionally an experiment will give an unex- 
pected result, or that the experiment will give 
rise to problems that will themselves open new 
fields of investigation. Often, too, some phase 
of an experiment will suggest an answer to a 
problem that has long been before the mind. 
These results are all incidental to the main pur- 
pose of the experiment. The experimenter has 

243 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

them in mind only in so far as he is aware that 
the best results of investigation are often un- 
foreseen. 

Experiment is like observation in the usual 
inductive proof, too, in that what one sees in 
the experiment will depend very largely upon 
the problem to be solved. Frequently the same 
operation contains the proof of several hypoth- 
eses but only those phases of the experiment 
are noticed that are related to the particular 
problem in mind. Experiment exhibits the 
effects of earlier experience in two other ways. 
It must supply the meanings that interpret what 
is immediately seen and also provide the means 
of understanding the results. The former is 
merely another expression of the general law of 
perception, the effect of the action of the old 
in enabling one to understand the things seen 
in the experiment. In an experiment one ordi- 
narily understands the general outcome at once, 
but it is often the case that the true meaning 
of the parts is appreciated only gradually, ordi- 
narily one part at a time. When each part is 
appreciated it is referred to some general prin- 
ciple. It is only as the parts of the operation 
are seen to embody general laws that the ex- 
periment is understood in its entirety, and the 

244 



NATURE OF INDUCTIVE PROOF 

degree in which it is understood depends upon 
how far it is possible to see it as typical of 
earlier established formulations of experience. 
Induction by observation and by experiment 
are essentially alike in that each is primarily a 
process of proof, not of inference. In the 
proof, too, each is in three respects dependent 
upon the same sort of general propositions as 
are contained in the premises of the syllogism. 
The course of the observation or experiment is 
guided by the general principle already sug- 
gested as the solution of the problem. The in- 
terpretation of what is seen consists in referring 
the materials of sense to meanings and general 
laws, and the results in each case are under- 
stood only as they may be referred to these 
earlier explicit formulations. While emphasis 
has been put throughout on the part that gen- 
eral principles and earlier experience has 
played in inductive proof, it is of course hardly 
necessary to say that as a result of these new 
observations the old formulae are constantly 
changed. The old is constantly interpreting 
the new, but the new, on the other hand, is also 
constantly even if gradually transforming the 
old. Otherwise there would never be progress 
in knowledge. 

245 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

The difference between proof by induction and 
by deduction is by no means so great as it 
is often assumed. The traditional difference 
makes one depend upon general principles, the 
other upon particular observations either before 
or after the proof is undertaken. As has been 
shown repeatedly the general principles are 
themselves not independent of particular ex- 
periences, and particular experiences prob- 
ably do not exist. They are always particular 
instances of general principles, types or laws. 
The difference between the two sorts of proof 
is that in the one we have the conclusion jus- 
tified by experience crystallized, in the other we 
have justification by new experiences inter- 
preted by the old or embodied in the old at 
the moment of perception. Probably inductive 
proof is the more valuable because it adds some 
new experience to that already accumulated 
which is active in the control of inference and 
in giving informal belief. Both forms of proof 
are alike in that they consist in showing that 
the conclusion harmonizes with experience: in 
the one case with earlier experience formu- 
lated into general laws, in the other with general 
laws that are supported and confirmed by defi- 
nitely enumerated observations or experiments. 

246 



NATUKE OF INDUCTIVE PEOOF 

Inductive proof not merely states the general 
principle but gives some of the concrete expe- 
riences upon which it depends. These serve 
to confirm if not to modify in some degree the 
old formulae. It brings new experience as well 
as the old to test the suggestion. In this alone 
does inductive proof differ from deductive. 

Since induction and deduction are in the his- 
tory of logic treated not merely as different 
forms of proof but as different forms of reason- 
ing as a total process, it may be desirable to ask 
again whether it is possible at all to distinguish 
differences in the way conclusions are derived 
as well as differences in the way they are estab- 
lished. Regarded in this traditional way it is 
easy to define the two processes. Deduction is 
the process of obtaining new truths or appli- 
cations from general principles. Induction is 
the process of obtaining general truths fom par- 
ticular observations. While the definitions 
make them sufficiently distinct, slight considera- 
tion shows that they have many points in com- 
mon. As has just been said, all perception 
results in the appearance of a general, not a par- 
ticular. The simplest perception, then, really 
gives rise to a universal, not to a particular. 
If this statement be generalized and applied to 
17 247 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

induction, we see that the particular never ap- 
pears in consciousness as particular. Even 
the most concrete object or percept when it 
enters consciousness has already become a type, 
has taken on meaning. This same conclusion 
may be applied, if it has not been applied, to 
dynamic relations as well as to any other rela- 
tion. One no more sees a single succession 
of events as a bare succession than one receives 
a group of sensations as a bare group of sen- 
sations. This, too, at its first apprehension is 
referred to some predeveloped law. The rec- 
ognition of the fall of a single body constitutes 
reference to a general law just as truly as the 
recognition of the movement of the heavenly 
bodies as one phase of the attraction of body 
for body is a reference to a general law of a 
more inclusive sort. The difference between 
the two recognitions is largely if not altogether 
in terms of the amount of material that is com- 
bined in the recognition. The perception of a 
falling body would probably be called induc- 
tion ; the formulation of the law of gravitation 
as a principle applicable to all masses every- 
where would certainly be called deduction. 

Before the first induction of this simplest sort 
there was certainly some crude type of refer- 

248 



NATUEE OF INDUCTIVE PKOOF 

ence. The body would not be recognized as 
falling unless there were other forms of motion 
that were already known from which it might be 
distinguished, as well as other instances of fall- 
ing to which it might be referred. Perception 
would come only when early experiences had 
been in some way united to form the type. The 
question of the order of development is not es- 
sential, but it is important and may be repeated 
that there is no perception of object, movement, 
or relation unless there be connection with pre- 
formed type. In other words, as we were com- 
pelled to assert earlier that there is no concept, 
meaning or universal that does not develop 
through experience, so we may say that there 
is no particular experience that becomes a real 
experience, except through the help of a pre- 
formed meaning, of an earlier developed uni- 
versal. If the particular is essential to the 
development of the universal, the universal is 
equally essential to the existence of the partic- 
ular. If the type is always present in percep- 
tion, it follows that induction is like de- 
duction in so far as it can not go on except on 
the basis of and by the help of earlier acquired 
experience. The two are alike also in that the 
earlier acquired experience is effective not in 

249 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

the form of raw material, but as it has crystal- 
lized into types or universals. As has been 
shown in some detail, the forces that direct and 
control the construction of the percept are prac- 
tically identical with the forces that guide the 
operation of constructive reasoning. The ma- 
terials of which the percept is formed are 
identical in large measure with the materials of 
abstract thought, and the resulting meaning is 
of the same character and often on the same 
level of generality. Each again has the 
same measure of truth, and it is applied in 
the same way. 

The only apparent difference between them 
is that in induction one starts on the stimulus 
of some external impression and proceeds to 
the universal, while in deduction one proceeds 
from the interpretation in which the induction 
ends and proceeds to some improvement in the 
thing interpreted on the basis of accumulated 
experience. One passes from particular occa- 
sion to a general truth, the other makes a par- 
ticular application of the earlier developed 
universal. One begins in the particular and 
ends in the general, the other begins with 
the general and ends in a particular appli- 
cation. In fact, the similarity is even closer 

250 



NATURE OF INDUCTIVE PEOOF 

if we extend the time over which, the operation 
is considered, since there is no case of deduc- 
tion that does not arise on the spur of practical 
need and have reference to some particular 
occasion while, on the other hand, there is no 
induction that does not have as its end ultimate 
application in some practical way of the results 
attained. With this extension every bit of rea- 
soning, inductive or deductive, makes the com- 
plete circuit from particular occasion in the 
stimulus through the accumulated experience 
that is embodied in the universal to the partic- 
ular application in the improvement of actual 
conditions. What we call induction and deduc- 
tion are but arcs of the one circle, and it is by 
no means easy to distinguish the beginning of 
one from the end of the other. In actual prac- 
tice they overlap in a considerable portion of 
the total operation. 

One can not have knowledge without the 
accumulation of experience, but also one can 
not have experience without preliminary knowl- 
edge developed and arranged in types. The 
two processes are reciprocal. One could not 
exist without the other. It is even difficult to 
determine in our adult consciousness which 
came first in the development of knowledge. 

251 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

It would seem that there could not be observa- 
tion before there were types into which the 
results of the observation might be taken up 
and by which they might be given form, but we 
also can not conceive of the development of 
types except through the accumulation of ex- 
perience. It is probable that in the earlier 
stages the two processes went on together. Be- 
fore there were types or universals in our em- 
pirical sense, there was no articulate knowledge 
even on the level of perception. Distinct con- 
sciousness developed out of the original chaos 
pari passu with the development of meanings 
and concepts. What there was before this de- 
velopment of articulate consciousness, one can 
not imagine. It was probably not unlike the 
moments of disorientation of the earliest awak- 
ening from sleep or an anaesthetic, or even like 
the consciousness during sleep. But on the 
other hand, the types or meanings seem depend- 
ent upon consciousness, and develop out of it. 
The development of the one is dependent upon 
the other and must go on together with it. The 
change of types in our developed consciousness 
is probably similar to the changes that went on 
in the early stages. Probably the first types 
were vague and general, and imparted their 

252 



NATUEE OF INDUCTIVE PROOF 

uncertainty to consciousness. As more and 
more experience was acquired they became more 
sharply defined, always reflecting the kind and 
amount of knowledge. Fortunately the prob- 
lem of the development of types does not con- 
cern us directly. It was only raised to suggest 
that while there is no consciousness that is not 
consciousness of meaning or type, the meanings 
or types have themselves been derived and are 
being derived through experience. 

Induction is not, as it has been sometimes 
pictured, a conscious and labored attempt to 
derive general principles from discrete partic- 
ulars. If it were, it would never be possible 
to obtain universals or even general statements. 
Deduction, on the other hand, is not a process 
by which one truth is derived from universals 
already established without reference to the use 
to which it may be put. Any reasoning that 
is of the least practical value is devoted to the 
solution of a particular problem under the spur 
of necessity, and in the solution of the problem 
it must always draw upon accumulated experi- 
ences that have taken on the typical or universal 
form. Each operation is part of a larger whole 
of thought. It has no meaning apart from that 
whole. The round from induction to deduction 

253 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

is never ceasing. One can in practice scarcely 
distinguish them. If one keeps close to the 
actual practice it is almost impossible to define 
induction in a way that shall not describe deduc- 
tion almost as well. They are complementary 
parts of a single whole. The process of reason- 
ing as we have sketched it is not what the older 
authorities would call induction nor is it what 
they would have called deduction. It partakes 
in part of the nature of induction, still more 
perhaps of the nature of deduction. So com- 
pletely do the two processes fuse in the actual 
operations of reasoning, that it is difficult to 
select from the resultant the part that belonged 
originally to one and the part that originally 
belonged to the other. 



CHAPTER IX 

DEGKEES OF TRUTH. MODALITY AND PROBABILITY 

It must be remembered that conclusions when 
established are not regarded as equally certain. 
It matters not how the conclusion may be 
reached or how it has been proved, one finds that 
all are not equally assured. It is obviously im- 
portant that the degrees of certainty of conclu- 
sions should be established, that they should be 
graded with reference to their probability, and 
if possible that the conditions that make some 
seem certain, others less certain should be 
stated. Two general groups of discussions of 
the degrees of truth have been developed in the 
history of logic and of science. One attempts 
to grade the truth of conclusions that have been 
warranted deductively, the other to measure the 
likelihood of conclusions that have been proved 
by reference to specific instances in observa- 
tion or experiment. The one can grade the de- 
gree of probability only roughly and in conse- 
quence devotes most attention to making clear 

255 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

the limits within which the statement will hold 
or the circumstances that make it seem prob- 
able. The other measures the probability more 
closely but is perhaps less successful in assign- 
ing the grounds that give truth. The one is 
covered by the term modality as it is used by 
the formal logician, the other leads to the math- 
ematical theory of probabilities. Each recog- 
nizes that a statement is likely to be true within 
limits only, and that if true, it will hold not of 
every specific instance that would seem to fall 
under it, but of a certain proportion only. 

The logician discusses the probability of his 
conclusion under the head of modality. The 
logician usually regards it as the modality of 
the judgment, but, as we have seen, what 
he calls the judgment is practically identical 
with what we have found to be better described 
as the inference or conclusion. The logical 
problem of the modality of judgment is really 
the problem of the modality of the conclusion, 
or at the very least the modality of the con- 
clusion and the judgment. By modality the 
logician means the measure of truth, or the 
degree of certainty that is ascribed by the 
thinker to the conclusion when it is reached. 
Some conclusions are apparently regarded as 

256 



DEGEEES OF TEUTH 

true without condition, others are regarded as 
true under assignable conditions. Of this last 
group, the conditions are sometimes stated, 
sometimes assumed to be known and not stated, 
sometimes are regarded as entirely unknown. 
The best known types of the modal judgment are 
the hypothetical, in which it is asserted that 
something is true if some preliminary condition 
is complied with; the disjunctive in which two 
alternative sets of conditions are stated with 
the results that would follow from each if true ; 
and finally the general assertions of probability 
and possibility, where no conditions are explic- 
itly stated and no measure of the degree of 
probability can be given except in terms of a 
mathematical treatment of empirical facts. To 
these might be added necessity which, however, 
may be regarded as a high degree of probability 
and in any event offers less of interest psycho- 
logically than the others. 

Each of these types of modal judgment may, 
I think, be very easily brought under the laws 
of the syllogism and its psychological condi- 
tions as sketched above. It has been insisted 
throughout that the conclusion reached is con- 
ditioned and controlled by the setting in which 
it occurs and that this in turn is dependent 

257 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

upon and is an outgrowth of the more remote 
experience of the individual. When these con- 
ditions become self-conscious and are expressly 
formulated, we have the hypothetical and other 
modal judgments. When one appreciates the 
fact that a conclusion depends for its truth upon 
the truth or adequacy of the mental grouping 
or setting out of which it grows, and is able to 
state at least a few of the elements that have 
led to the conclusion, one has the hypothetical 
statement. Of course, again, every conclusion 
depends upon other related experiences for its 
truth, but the dependence is not always recog- 
nized. In this sense one may agree with Brad- 
ley that all categorical statements are really 
hypothetical. We are not at the moment con- 
scious that they have grown out of a particular 
mental attitude, of a single group of experi- 
ences, but a little examination of the changes 
that would be made in the statement, were the 
attitude or the wider experience to change, is 
sufficient to indicate that the statement depends 
for its truth upon the truth of the context. It 
is but another way of saying that a proposition 
can never be true except in its context, be the 
context verbal or mental. Ordinarily the truth 
of the context is taken as a matter of course. 

258 



DEGREES OF TRUTH 

It is probably only when there is reason to 
doubt the truth of the statement, when there 
is conflict between two sets of experiences that 
are recognized as related to the conclusion, 
that the conditions become conscious. In this 
sense, the statement of the hypothesis is closely 
related to the statement of the premises. Both 
come after the inference has been completed 
and both come only when there is some doubt, 
when there is something to disturb the assur- 
ance of certainty that normally attaches to the 
inference. The difference appears to lie in the 
fact that in the ordinary syllogism doubt is dis- 
pelled on examination; it is possible to refer 
the conclusion to general principles that are 
self-consistent and consistent with the entirety 
of experience, while in the hypothetical propo- 
sition, the doubt is not resolved on examination 
but confirmed and the most that can be done is 
to push it one step farther back to a doubt con- 
cerning some one general proposition. Take an 
engineering problem for example. One asserts 
that the dams on the Panama Canal will be suf- 
ficiently stable provided they can be placed upon 
a firm subsoil or bedrock. The subsoil, the 
commission tells us, will be stable enough pro- 
vided the ground water can be kept out from 

259 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

it, and the ground water in turn can be kept 
away provided it is not under too great pres- 
sure and there is a waterproof stratum suffi- 
ciently near the surface. On the final suppo- 
sition one might or might not be in a position 
to commit one's self. Did one know the facts 
in advance as would ordinarily be the case be- 
fore the hypothetical judgment is formulated, 
the bits of knowledge that constitute the hypoth- 
eses would be concerned in the original state- 
ment in giving to it its degree of probability 
or improbability. There would under these cir- 
cumstances be bits of knowledge that would 
make for each of the two possible conclusions 
that the dams would stand, and that they would 
not. In the resulting proposition there would 
be either a qualified affirmative or a qualified 
negative. When the problem is analyzed still 
farther, the opposing sets of considerations 
come to explicit consciousness in the hypotheses 
and the doubt is pushed back and centered upon 
one single proposition, and that is neither 
affirmed nor denied. What is meant by assert- 
ing that all general categorical statements are 
hypothetical is only that all assertions depend 
upon the cooperation of similar bits of knowl- 
edge and that one must, in asserting the truth 

260 



DEGREES OP TRUTH 

of any proposition, go backward in a never- 
ending regressus of experiences before one can 
assign the real basis for acceptance or rejec- 
tion. Tacitly at least each statement that can 
be made depends for its truth upon something 
else, no matter how far one cares to push the 
investigation. Since one must stop somewhere 
in the assignment of reasons, the last step may 
always be regarded as the hypothesis upon 
which the more immediate statements rest. We 
ordinarily have the feeling of belief that comes 
with absence of contradiction among our experi- 
ences with reference to any point, and are not 
inclined to raise the question of the probability 
of our conclusion. The interdependence of our 
inferences passes unnoticed, but it none the less 
exists as can be seen by the examination of any 
simple statement. 

The disjunctive judgment or inference is 
closely related both in the conditions of its 
origin and in its fundamental basis to the hypo- 
thetical judgment, inference, or proposition. 
The hypothetical judgment always arises, as 
was said, from conflict or opposition between 
different elements of experience. The disjunc- 
tive judgment arises when one becomes con- 
scious of the conflict and of its conditions. The 

261 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

only difference is that the disjunctive form of 
expression is assumed when the opposition is 
between two sets of elements alone, and it is 
certain that no other possibilities can present 
themselves. The possibility of limiting the op- 
posing suppositions to two is an important 
positive addition. It requires fully as much 
certainty about the nature of one's knowledge 
to assert that in any given case there are but 
two points of view from which a subject can be 
viewed, and two corresponding conclusions that 
can be drawn from the given set of facts, as to 
assert any positive fact. The disjunctive form 
of statement arises with reference to a prac- 
tical situation when a conclusion is reached that 
is accompanied by doubt. Then it is found that 
there are two general formulations of expe- 
rience to which the conclusion can be referred, 
and that when referred to one, one inference is 
necessarily drawn, when looked at in the 
light of the other, another inference is 
made. The practical advantage of the dis- 
junction comes from the fact that it is not at 
all infrequently the case that which of the two 
inferences be correct is indifferent to our action. 
If the given situation is of one kind, our course 
of action will satisfy the conditions equally as 

262 



DEGREES OP TEUTH 

well as if the situation proves to be of the oppo- 
site kind. Or if they be not altogether indif- 
ferent to our proposed line of action, we may 
at least be prepared for eventual decision in 
either way. Suppose for instance a physician 
is presented with a case of mental alienation 
marked by definitely developed and firmly fixed 
delusions. He has had no opportunity to study 
the case history or fully to trace out the other 
symptoms of the disease. He is, however, in 
position to state with definiteness that the 
patient is suffering either from dementia 
praecox or from paranoia. (We may assume 
for the sake of argument that the diagnosis 
has been sufficient to exclude some of the other 
forms of delusional insanity.) This alterna- 
tive diagnosis will suffice for many purposes. 
It will suffice to warrant the co mmi ssion of the 
patient to an asylum, and will warrant the 
physician in holding out little hope to friends 
and relatives for the ultimate recovery. Fur- 
thermore it will be possible to advise a subordi- 
nate or a layman that if certain new symptoms 
develop the case will fall under one of these 
two heads, while if other symptoms develop it 
will fall under another head. In either case 
provision can be made in advance for the treat- 
is 263 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

ment of the case to the practical advantage of 
all concerned. 

It will be noticed that in our nomenclature 
what is affected by the uncertainty in the dis- 
junction is the judgment proper, the apprecia- 
tion of the given, while the hypothesis affects 
the inference. If our observation is guided by 
one set of factors, by one context, one interpre- 
tation will be made, if guided by another, an- 
other interpretation comes into being. This 
interpretation is the basis for the inference but 
it is not the inference itself. All disjunctive 
judgments then limit the interpretations that 
may be put upon a presented somewhat or are 
memories of such limitations of possible inter- 
pretations. From the disjunctive judgment one 
may look either backward or forward ; backward 
to the conditions out of which the interpretations 
might arise ; forward to the resulting methods of 
dealing with the possible interpretations. Each 
of the two interpretations would necessarily 
lead to at least one conclusion. The hypothet- 
ical form may be taken by the judgment 
as well as the inference in the true sense, but 
this is not so frequent. One might say of an 
object at a distance, that it is a man if it moves 
in the upright position, just as we may say of 

264 



DEGREES OF TRUTH 

our case of mental disease, that it is more likely 
to be paranoia if it has remained without in- 
creased deterioration for a term of years, or 
if the group of accompanying mental processes 
is of one kind, the case will be called paranoia, 
if of another, dementia praecox. The hypoth- 
esis more usually attaches to the inference; 
the disjunction affects the interpretation of the 
situation, as the coming to consciousness of the 
context into which the object to be interpreted 
must be taken up. The hypothesis on the 
other hand arises when the conditions that are 
controlling the inference become self-conscious. 
There is the further difference that the disjunc- 
tion definitely limits the number of possible 
ways of considering or interpreting the given, 
while the hypothesis recognizes but one of the 
conditions and does not attempt to deny that 
there may be others that are equally to be 
taken into consideration. The disjunction 
gives an important piece of information of a 
positive character, the hypothetical but recog- 
nizes the uncertainty of the judgment and one 
at least of the bases of the uncertainty. 

The more general attitude toward an infer- 
ence or a judgment that it is probable or pos- 
sible, goes back to the same psychological con- 

265 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

ditions. When we are willing to assert that a 
result is probable but not certain, the conclu- 
sion when tested by experience is found to 
harmonize with everything that is explicitly 
present, but there is still a lurking feeling that 
it might not harmonize with some facts that are 
not so explicitly present. We have in this case 
no recognition of the attitudes that would lead 
to other conclusions, but there is still some 
remnant of the doubt consciousness that is a 
sign that there is not complete harmony with 
all experience. There is not quite complete be- 
lief. When a statement is asserted to be pos- 
sible, the doubt feeling is stronger and 
approaches a reservation of judgment. Possi- 
bility and probability then are merely expres- 
sions of the doubt consciousness. The doubt 
feeling is present but there is no definite ap- 
preciation of the conditions that give rise to it, 
there is no recognition of the particular parts 
of consciousness with which it will and will not 
harmonize as in the hypothetical and disjunc- 
tive judgments. 

The assertion of necessity or certainty 
would be on its face the expression of the per- 
fect harmony with the entirety of experience. 
It is probable, however, that in practice the 

266 



DEGREES OF TEUTH 

results that are asserted to be absolutely certain 
are really in greater doubt than those that are 
made and never questioned. As we have seen 
so frequently it is only when there is a pre- 
liminary doubt that a conclusion is ever ques- 
tioned, and at most to assert that a conclusion 
is necessary means that the preliminary doubt 
has been dispelled upon examination. Even 
then man is prone to assert belief most pos- 
itively when least certain, that there may be 
no sign in speech of the wavering in the 
speaker's own mind. Barring this evidence of 
human frailty which is rather a matter for 
psychology or for ethics than for logic, we 
might arrange the inferences and judgments in 
the order of their harmony with the experience 
of the individual, and in order of their truth 
for him in the series, (1) those that are unques- 
tioned, (2) the necessary, (3) the probable, (4) 
the possible, and (5) the rejected. The hypo- 
thetical would fall under the head of the proba- 
ble or possible in which the particular conditions 
of doubt or belief had become self-conscious, in 
which one had become aware of the particular 
phases of experience with which they were or 
were not in harmony. All phases of modality 
are an expression of the fact that every inter- 

267 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

pretation and every inference is tested by the 
background of knowledge, and that acceptance 
or rejection, partial acceptance or partial re- 
jection depends upon the completeness of har- 
mony with the accumulated experiences. 

When after the knowledge of the individual 
has passed upon the conclusion and it is still 
found that there is a disjunction, when it is ap- 
preciated that in the present state of knowledge 
there are certain factors that make for one 
conclusion and certain factors that make for 
another, the problem is put to the test of experi- 
ment. Even then it is not at all unlikely that 
the results will fall out now in one way and 
again in another. This is the usual result in 
matters that are at all complicated. But the 
discussion takes us over to the probability of an 
inductive proof. 

It remains but to insist that the probability 
of the judgment or of the conclusion is one of 
the results that may come from the process of 
bringing the conclusion to the bar of experience 
after the operation of interpreting or of infer- 
ring has been completed. When one turns to 
examine the product of the mental operation, 
it may be found to fit in under some law already 
accepted, it may be found that it not only has no 

268 



DEGBEES OF TRUTH 

resting place in the completed system, but that 
there are certain parts of knowledge with which 
it will not harmonize, while there are others 
that seem to demand it. In the one case, the 
conclusion is proved as in the syllogism ; in the 
other we can do no more than assert doubt in 
varying degrees by the word probably or pos- 
sibly or can perhaps show that the doubt rests 
upon a particular conflict, a conflict between two 
definitely formulable phases or aspects of 
knowledge. In either case truth or uncertainty 
depends not upon the particular process before 
the bar but upon its relation to the organized 
whole of knowledge. 

When a conclusion is put to the test in ex- 
periment or by observation it frequently, in fact 
usually, happens that it will be confirmed by 
some trials and not by others. Then the ques- 
tion presents itself : is it possible that the state- 
ment is true nevertheless and, if it is possibly 
true, what is the degree of probability? That 
the conclusion may still be accepted in the face 
of certain negative instances is believed because 
a real connection between two events may be 
obscured in one of two ways: by errors of 
observation and by the action of irrelevant 
forces which can not be excluded or detected 

269 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

when present. The former will affect any ob- 
servation whatever, but will be important only 
in disturbing measurements, — usually the pres- 
ence or absence of a cause is not easily con- 
cealed. Irrelevant circumstances are likely to 
obscure the presence of the real cause. The 
former is less interesting for our purposes. 
Suffice it to say that the greater the similarity 
between different measurements the more ac- 
curate the result. The mathematical treatment 
and measurement of probability in this use 
would take us too far. 

Where on the other hand one is seeking to 
determine whether a connection that is observed 
or that has been suggested is really causal there 
is more evidence of the nature of the thinking 
process and of the factors that give probability. 
The assumption upon which the calculus of 
probabilities depends is that in a mass of in- 
fluences that are governed by no law one is 
as likely to occur as another, and similarly that 
when the causes are unknown one effect is as 
likely to make its appearance as any other. 
When a cause and a particular effect appear 
together more frequently than they should on 
this assumption it is believed that the connec- 
tion is one of cause not of chance coincidence. 

270 



DEGEEES OF TEUTH 

The more frequent their joint appearance the 
greater is the probability that the connection is 
causal, not chance. We need not here go into 
the more detailed mathematical computations or 
even consider Mill's canons. It is rather our 
problem to show the similarities between prob- 
ability in inductive and deductive proofs from 
more general considerations. For, while fre- 
quency of connection is the explicit ground for 
assuming that a connection is real, one may 
easily trace the influence of older experiences 
and of meanings. Usually one suspects a 
causal relation before the coincidences have 
been observed. Even when a causal relation 
is suggested by the coincidences a large part of 
the probability is derived from the agreement 
of the connection with large masses of expe- 
rience. Unless the relation seems important or 
the cause appears to be really adequate to the 
effect on other grounds, even frequent coinci- 
dences will not suffice to make the relation 
seem to be one of cause and effect. For in- 
stance, I have frequently been struck with an 
uneven distribution of the initials of my 
students over the alphabet. One year there 
will be an undue proportion from first letters, 
the next the latter half of the alphabet will 

271 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OP SEASONING 

predominate. I have never worked out the 
relation, but were the calculation to confirm the 
conjecture, one would certainly not regard it as 
evidence of the working of obscure causes. 
Eather one would still insist that it was a 
peculiar chance, working even through a large 
number of instances. It is only when such a 
relation can be seen to have connections with 
other laws and other parts of the system, when 
it seems reasonable, that a number of coinci- 
dences will be accepted as proving a causal 
relation. 

Cause itself is on the same level as the mean- 
ings we have been discussing. It is a crystal- 
lization of numerous experiences into a general 
principle that now serves to give order to ex- 
perience. It is easier to trace the course of 
precipitation of the causal principle from the 
original chaos than it was to understand the 
development of many other meanings. The 
center is apparently the feeling of human effort, 
the mass of feelings that appear when we are 
accomplishing something in the world as com- 
pared with the passivity that marks our atti- 
tude toward events that merely happen. This 
original personification has been much modified 
by the numerous instances of purely mechanical 

272 



DEGEEES OF TKUTH 

relation that have been classed with it. Even 
now, however, we sympathize with a cause that 
seems not quite adequate much as we would with 
a person. We find our muscles tense as we 
watch an automobile that is barely able to reach 
the top of a hill, or even when an induction cur- 
rent is not quite strong enough to induce a 
muscle to contract in a physiological experi- 
ment. "Whatever may have been the origin of 
the relation, it has developed in the course of 
time to become a systematized relation on the 
same level as a meaning. As such it serves to 
give definiteness to the experiences that are re- 
ferred to it. On the other hand the nature of 
the relation that is assigned to successive events 
is dependent upon the wider ramifications of 
the experience, not alone upon the frequency of 
the connection or the nature of the objects con- 
nected. 

If one is observing particular relations the 
probability that a connection will be regarded 
as causal will depend then upon reference to 
the causal relation and upon the degree with 
which the assumption that it is causal har- 
monizes with related experiences. One might 
add that even the mathematical deter- 
minations of probability from coincidences 

273 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONIN 

is itself to be justified by certain assumptions 
that were established on general considerations, 
and have been justified only by the completeness 
with which they agree with observed facts. 
Gauss 's formula for the distribution of observa- 
tions was certainly not established by mere 
observation, and no more was the assumption 
that where conditions are unknown one effect is 
as likely to predominate as another. The work- 
ing assumptions of all computations of prob- 
ability is in terms of meanings, the relation that 
we call causal is a meaning, and each is depend- 
ent for its particular application not alone upon 
observations of the moment but upon the degree 
to which the observation may be interpreted by 
definitely formulated earlier experience, and by 
the degree to which the interpretation when 
applied will harmonize with related experiences. 
The probability that a causal relation will be 
ascribed to successive events will depend first, 
upon the number of coincidences and second, 
upon the degree to which the suggestion har- 
monizes with related experiences. Ordinarily 
the two work in harmony. If the number of 
coincidences is large one turns at once to dis- 
cover some earlier accepted principle that may 
be connected with them. If that is not found 

274 



DEGREES OP TRUTH 

one would suspect fraud, would assume some 
mysterious force, or would put the observation 
aside as mere chance result or as inexplicable. 
On the other hand, could one find no empirical 
evidence to support a relation that seemed prob- 
able on general grounds one would either dis- 
trust the observation, assume that the cause was 
too slight to be observed or assume that some 
mistake had been made in the conclusion. 
Neither inductive nor deductive proof will give 
any high degree of probability unless confirmed 
by the other. The probability assigned to any 
conclusion that may be given application will 
depend in part upon observed coincidences, in 
part upon its relation to other experiences. 



CHAPTER X 

CONCLUSION 

One general principle that has been empha- 
sized in connection with each separate problem 
may still require more explicit discussion. This 
is the statement of the nature and action of 
meanings or types, or the system of knowledge. 
It has been stated just now and, on occasion 
throughout, that the beginning as well as the 
end of all reasoning has been the establish- 
ment of a system of things and of explanations 
that corresponds on the empirical level to the 
world of universals of Bradley and Bosanquet. 
This is a statement that is manifestly dangerous 
as may well be seen from the abuse of the idea 
in many systems of philosophy. I desire by 
way of final statement to limit the principle of 
explanation that it shall not seem to mean either 
too little or too much. In the first place I de- 
sire to insist that it is intended that no mystery 
or miracle shall be concealed in the term, al- 
though there is very much ignorance about 

276 



CONCLUSION 

many of the applications. If possible my aim 
in this final summary is to draw a line care- 
fully that shall delimit both our ignorance and 
our knowledge of the principle that has been 
made so much of. 

In the first place my intention has been to 
introduce into the system nothing that can not 
be discovered in the concrete consciousness, and 
to insist that the system has been developed in 
consciousness, or at least through experience. 
On the other hand it must be insisted that the 
system is not a mere accumulation of experi- 
ences and its elements are not particular expe- 
riences. If one asks on the common level of 
observation what is meant by this system, we 
must answer that it is the world of things as it 
is thought of in our every day life. On a some- 
what higher level it is the world of the scientist, 
so far as it is represented in the mind of the 
individual. We may affirm in the light of our 
earlier discussion that our mental states are 
primarily the world as we think it and as we 
see it. There is no evidence of a world of dis- 
crete sensation apart from this unitary and in- 
terpreted world of things. We do not have as 
we think or perceive a mass of discrete sensa- 
tions, or of other distinct elements. What we 

277 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

do have in mind on the contrary is an articu- 
late system that comes at once and monopo- 
lizes consciousness from the moment that there 
is consciousness. 

If we turn from vague general statement to 
the question of origin and development, it may 
be possible to make a little clearer the nature of 
the process, as well as its origin. That an 
atom or an idea of cause could anywhere be 
seen or otherwise make its appearance as a 
single event in perception is incredible. All 
attempts to explain the development of any of 
the real units or relations in that way have 
proved to be failures. One never sees an atom, 
one never sees an ether vibration, one has direct 
and immediate consciousness of none of the 
fundamentals of reality or of science. In an 
earlier discussion we saw that the simplest 
object did not make its entrance into conscious- 
ness as it is found to exist in consciousness. 
Even the desk in front of you has never given 
rise to a retinal image that is like your memory 
or your percept. We saw that the simple object 
had developed from experience by a process of 
trial and error that resulted in making a mental 
picture that was like no single impression that 
had ever fallen upon the retina. One chooses 

278 



CONCLUSION 

from the images and from thought modifica- 
tions of the images that which best fits into 
experience, which satisfies the largest number 
of practical tests. It is the one that will work 
under the more important conditions. It is, 
therefore, accepted as real. 

Consideration of the development of any idea 
seems to afford evidence that it too has devel- 
oped in very much the same way, at least by the 
same general laws. The development of the 
more general ideas of the science gives evidence 
of a similar principle on a large scale. Sugges- 
tion after suggestion is made and that one is ac- 
cepted that best explains the knowledge of the 
period in the field in which it is offered. 
These suggestions are by no means independent 
of actual experience as to their nature, but it is 
equally certain that they are very often not 
directly given in experience. How they stand 
to the concrete experience is difficult to assert. 
It can be said only that the explanations are 
not indifferent to experience. The degree of 
similarity to particular experiences varies in 
different cases from near zero to approximate 
identity. The process of developing the ex- 
planations has been enormously slow. The 
process by which the system has crystallized out 
19 279 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

of discrete experiences has been long drawn out, 
but it has been gradually approximating its end. 
More important than the origin of the sugges- 
tion is the question of what makes the selection, 
of what it is that decides which one is fit and 
shall survive, which unfit and is to be rejected. 
This decision is, as was seen in the case of the 
syllogism, entirely in terms of the accumulated 
experience. Any suggestion that will har- 
monize with that experience and unify it will be 
accepted and each explanation will be rejected 
whenever new facts develop that can not be 
taken up into it. More truly perhaps it might 
be said that an old theory will be rejected when 
a new theory is suggested that is better suited 
to the facts, for occasionally a theory that is no 
longer adequate will persist by inertia until 
some better one appears. This, for example, is 
the present status of the physiological color 
theories, and I have no doubt other theories in 
many different sciences could be found to illus- 
trate the fact. However theories may be sug- 
gested, then, they are tested by the degree to 
which they serve to harmonize the accumulated 
experiences. 

What I have been arguing for is that the in- 
dividual consciousness contains a system or 

280 



CONCLUSION 

systems that are on exactly the same general 
plane as this system of knowledge as it is 
formulated in the sciences. This system 
springs up in the individual mind in a way that 
is fully as difficult to trace as the development 
of the scientific conception of the world. For 
the most part, the origin is apparently by the 
method of trial and error. The suggestions 
have their material furnished by the senses and 
experience in general, but are always modified 
from the contributions of sense. The test of the 
system again is that it harmonizes the expe- 
rience of the individual, and that it will work 
when put to the test. That it is closely re- 
lated to experience in origin and in the way it is 
tested is shown by the closeness of its relation 
to the amount and character of the experience 
of the individual. In the child, in the man of 
early historic times, in the savage and the 
ignorant of to-day, it will be poorly developed; 
in the man of science of the present it will be 
well developed along certain lines, no matter 
how poor its development in other relations. 
Wherever it is found, it will be adequate to the 
experience of the individual. When developed, 
it is what the individual calls his real world. 
This world or individual system of knowledge 

281 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

includes not merely concrete things and single 
relations but also typical forms of relation that 
are recognized as the more permanent causes 
and the innumerable general principles and 
laws. The substantive resting places in the 
entire connected system constitute our types, 
meanings or concepts and are the things of the 
popular mind; the ordered relations are space 
and time on the more passive side, cause and 
effect, reciprocity etc., as more active rela- 
tions. 

When we ask how this system is thought, one 
must be careful not to be misled by the details of 
structure. The system is the essence of the 
consciousness of every individual, but it can not 
be easily described in terms of discrete ele- 
ments. To understand how it is conscious, one 
must pay more attention to the relations and 
connections than to the elements. While the 
system in its entirety can not be conscious at 
once, it is always present as a background of 
consciousness, and all experience is in terms of 
some part of it. The system is effective more 
as a possibility of reinstatement than in what is 
actually presented. When one part is pre- 
sented there is felt the possibility of the rein- 
statement of all that remains. This felt 

282 



CONCLUSION 

potentiality of reinstatement constitutes the 
awareness of the system or of the part that is 
open to return at the time. It is as when one 
cites a familiar proposition in geometry, or in 
the construction of a piece of apparatus comes 
to a part that has been used frequently before. 
As soon as the proposition is cited, it is ac- 
cepted as established, and thought goes on to 
something else with perfect confidence. The ac- 
cepted potentiality of recall has all the efficacy 
for proof and for use that detailed recall would 
have. Any consciousness of the system seems 
to be nothing more than this accepted capacity 
for reinstatement. In fact, any bit of expe- 
rience is nothing more than the consciousness 
that accompanies the point of intersection of 
open paths of association. Consciousness is not 
of the element itself but always of the element 
plus many of its connections, — how many de- 
pends upon circumstances. Consciousness is of 
the whole with emphasis upon the part, never 
of the part alone. Granted the awareness of 
the open paths of connection, it seems to make 
very little difference what the actual imagery 
may be. Some think in terms of vision and see 
things with perceptual-like fidelity, others have 
but vague imagery or use some other sense for 

283 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

the recall of objects, while still others seem to 
have practically no imagery of any kind. Yet 
all think the same thing and with indistinguish- 
able degrees of effectiveness. This indiffer- 
ence of the image seems to find its explanation 
in the fact that what each man thinks has the 
same gronp connections. With the same con- 
nections the same end is attained, no matter 
what the kernel may be about which they center 
and from which they irradiate. The conscious- 
ness of the system seems to depend very largely 
upon the connections that are established be- 
tween part and part, connections that are re- 
flected in consciousness over wide areas even if 
the particular mental state seems to be of lim- 
ited extent. 

Granted the existence of this system of knowl- 
edge, all thinking is in terms of it. Thinking 
grows out of it on the one hand and on 
the other serves still farther to develop 
it. At any given moment it is the start- 
ing point of thinking and controls thought, 
and at the same time each end attained 
by thought serves to develop and enlarge the 
system. Each of the reasoning processes illus- 
trates one phase or the other of this operation 
of elaborating experience in terms of the sys- 

284 



CONCLUSION 

tern, or of elaborating the system in terms of 
experience. Judgment we have seen to be de- 
finable as the process of taking the presented 
something up into the system. Thereby the 
presented is interpreted and prepared for 
understanding. In the process of inference, 
the situation that has been interpreted is modi- 
fied in thought or in practice better to satisfy 
the needs of the moment. To put the matter 
more concretely, judgment may be said to con- 
sist in the appreciation of a difficulty ; inference, 
in the process of removing the difficulty. Be- 
fore judgment there is only vague bafflement; 
with judgment the source of the difficulty is ap- 
preciated, and this recognition prepares for the 
remedy that is sought and found in the infer- 
ence. When it has been found, it will ordinarily 
in some degree modify the system. 

The system also serves in various ways to 
control the operation of interpreting and im- 
proving. Even for the needs that impel to 
interpret and to improve we must look beyond 
the momentary consciousness. The need is 
ordinarily not to remove an instinctively dis- 
agreeable effect. The need arises from the 
wider purpose of the individual, and this pur- 
pose is itself something that arises because of a 

285 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASONING 

felt gap in an ideal system. One has ideals, 
and ideals are not realized in the immediately 
presented. The disparities between the ideals 
and the appreciated situation creates a need, 
just as the realization of an ideal creates a pur- 
pose that will extend over a longer or shorter 
time. During the dominance of the purpose, 
interpretations and inferences are devoted to 
the attainment of the end, be the end actual or 
only the solution of a problem in thought. On 
the one side the mental life might be re- 
garded as the appearance, one after the 
other, of different members of the hierarchy of 
purposes. On the other hand the appreciated 
situation is constantly calling into being new 
factors that serve to develop and to check pur- 
poses. From this point of view, the movement 
of thought might be regarded as an interaction 
of purposes and environment, each of which in 
some measure modifies the other. At least no 
interpretation and no improvement can be con- 
sidered as a discrete event. It has its meaning 
in, and its appearance and development is con- 
trolled by, wider mental and physical contexts. 
These serve to determine the nature of the ap- 
preciation and to give the desire that leads to 
the particular improvements. In this way the 

28Q 



CONCLUSION 

progress of thought is one continuous operation. 
No part can be understood unless it is con- 
sidered with the whole. The occasion for the 
interpretation is found in the purpose that is 
controlling consciousness at the time; the way 
the interpreted or appreciated presentation is 
improved depends upon the universe of thought 
in which the separate process arises. The 
system of purposes is as definitely organized 
as the system of knowledge. It is the outcome 
of the same experience that gave rise to the 
system of knowledge. Other factors are em- 
phasized in it that are not so definitely empha- 
sized in the development of the system of knowl- 
edge, such for example as the instincts, and the 
impulses to avoid instinctively disagreeable 
situations. The large mass of experience, how- 
ever, would be identical in each; the organiza- 
tion alone is different. Of both the system of 
knowledge and the system of purposes we may 
say that they can be understood only as wholes 
and that any attempt to consider a fragment of 
either must inevitably lead to failure, to an in- 
adequate explanation even of that part. 

Very much the same remarks may be passed 
upon the tests of truth as upon the materials 
of which reasoning makes use, and the incen- 

287 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

tives to progress. As has been said repeatedly, 
what may be accepted as true depends upon the 
same organized mass of experiences, but it is 
active here as a magistrate in passing upon the 
interpretations and the conclusions that suggest 
themselves. Harmony with the mass gives be- 
lief, conflict gives doubt or immediate rejection. 
As in science and in the development of mean- 
ings in the individual, the suggestion is con- 
sciously tested only after it has been formed. 
Ordinarily the suggestion is adequate, and no 
consciousness need attach, at least no question 
of truth arises. Action goes on with no further 
consideration, or thought progresses to the next 
undertaking. Where there is conflict the test- 
ing may become self-conscious. Then we have 
explicit justification by reference to an earlier 
accepted general principle. If it fits under the 
head, we have the belief spreading from the al- 
ready accepted to the new suggestion. This 
process of explicit justification is the work of 
the syllogism in formal logic. If the reference 
to the general is not satisfactory, we may have 
doubt in varying degrees that finds its expres- 
sion in the modal judgments. In any case 
whether the justification is explicit and formal 
or whether it be implicit and informal, the ulti- 

288 



CONCLUSION 

mate test of truth is the harmony of the sugges- 
tion with the organized and unorganized knowl- 
edge so far accumulated. 

Our system then we have made to perform 
three distinct functions in the reasoning opera- 
tions. First we say that the systematized pur- 
poses provide the incentives to all reasoning, to 
all advance in knowledge; they also determine 
what the general course of the advancing knowl- 
edge shall be. In the second place the de- 
veloped system of knowledge with its elements, 
the meanings and concepts, provides the ma- 
terials out of which the interpretations origin- 
ate, and from which improvements of the 
interpreted situation may be drawn. In the 
third place the same mass of knowledge passes 
upon and selects or rejects the interpretations 
and conclusions that are derived from the sys- 
tem of knowledge to satisfy the system of needs. 
The three functions are more distinct than the 
systems that perform the functions, but the 
functions themselves all work together to the 
single end of the advancement of knowledge. 

An important side of the reasoning process 
is the expression of the results in language, and 
their acceptance and comprehension by another. 
This is at once the basis of further advance 

289 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

in the knowledge of the race and is important 
to the individual in giving him a wider test 
of his results. Upon the two depend the more 
important advances in the knowledge of the in- 
dividual and of the race. It is this phase of 
the reasoning process that most concerns the 
formal logician. Formal logic would probably 
be most accurately denned as the science of the 
interpretation and proof of the detached propo- 
sitions. In comparing the expression of a 
thought with the thinking itself it is necessary 
to consider a set of controls that is not present 
or active in the thought process of the isolated 
individual. This is that his expression always 
takes into account the knowledge and present 
purpose of the listener. To adapt one's ex- 
pression to that becomes one of the guiding 
purposes of the speaker and thinker. As the 
position and the knowledge that is assumed to 
be possessed by the listener changes from mo- 
ment to moment, a change in linguistic expres- 
sion may mean a change in the speaker's 
thought or it may mean that the hearer has 
changed his position, or that the hearer has 
changed and that the new listener is assumed 
to have different knowledge and different pur- 
poses or interests from the last. To under- 
go 



CONCLUSION 

stand any spoken statement, it is necessary not 
merely to consider the words as they stand, but 
the mental setting of both speaker and hearer, 
the mental setting of the hearer at least as it 
is presupposed by the speaker. We have seen 
that many of the distinctions of the formal 
logician are misleading, both because he con- 
siders the proposition without reference to its 
context in either mind, and because he neg- 
lects to consider the social factors that control 
speech but do not control thought. As a con- 
sequence his discussion of the proposition is 
ordinarily based upon what it might mean un- 
der any conceivable conditions, while in actual 
use it means at once less and more, because it 
can be understood only in its context, only as 
a part of the universe of discourse. Logic, then, 
may be said to be different from the psychology 
of reasoning because it is primarily concerned 
with thought as expressed in language rather 
than with thought itself. In inference it is con- 
cerned with providing proof for a conclusion 
after it has been given in language; it has not 
been concerned with the origin of the conclu- 
sion. The psychology of reasoning is or 
should be concerned with the progress of 
thought as a whole and of the particular bit 

291 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

of reasoning in its setting. It is also con- 
cerned at once with the genesis of the interpre- 
tation or the derivation of the conclusion and 
interpretation, and with its truth, so far at least 
as the test of truth is a concrete psychological 
state with assignable conditions. 

Our final picture of the reasoning operation 
in the individual is of the development of a 
system of knowledge, that is constantly pro- 
gressing from original chaos toward perfect 
order. Only in so far as there is system is 
there consciousness, but the system with its 
consciousness is developed from an original un- 
systematized experience. Every new impres- 
sion is interpreted by being assigned a place 
in the system, but each new impression also 
tends as well to modify the system. The re- 
sult is that out of the system everything comes, 
into the system everything goes, and still as 
the net result of the operation there is prog- 
ress. In every man there are, of course, con- 
flicting partial systems as James has shown so 
brilliantly in his Psychology. But the prog- 
ress of thought tends to an amalgamation of 
systems as it tends to a development of the 
systems. First there is partial crystallization 
of knowledge about different centers; as more 

292 



CONCLUSION 

experiences accumulate several systems may be 
thrown into one, they may be organized about 
a single center. The last generation has seen 
such an amalgamation between the systems of 
physics and of chemistry. The growth of the 
system of any individual shows many such 
amalgamations on a smaller scale. Perfect 
knowledge, if one were to indulge in Utopian 
speculation, would probably involve a perfect 
unity of all parts of knowledge, but that we 
may imagine to be far away. At that time 
there would be no conflict, no doubt, no incen- 
tive to progress ; Nirvana would be attained. 

Two factors in the process of development 
have been but lightly touched upon. These are 
the interaction of individual upon individual, 
and the test of the accumulated experience in 
action when once it has been obtained. Both 
have been taken for granted as one of the 
sources of knowledge that were constantly 
providing material to the various systems. 
The social life is perhaps more largely effective 
in providing incentives, in offering material for 
the system of purposes; the active life adds 
more in the way of tests of adequacy, but each 
necessarily modifies the system of knowledge 
as a mass of materials. 

293 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING 

Granted that knowledge is this consistent sys- 
tem that is constantly developing by taking new 
materials np into itself, there are a number of 
more general problems that suggest them- 
selves. For example, what is the relation 
of the system to what is ordinarily called 
the human mind and to the real material 
world without? If it is progressing, where 
is it going? Whither is it tending? Each 
of 'these questions takes us well beyond the 
confines of either logic or psychology, but it may 
be well to make a few dogmatic statements con- 
cerning them to show that the problems are rec- 
ognized and to state some of the connections of 
our results with the more generally recognized 
problems of epistemology. To the question of 
the connection with the external world we may 
say that our system is the external world as it 
is appreciated. Whether there is an external 
world that is not appreciated seems to me to be 
a question that by the very manner of its asking 
can not be answered. At the most it is but the 
limit toward which the system must be pictured 
as progressing. When more is systematized it 
will be part of the system of knowledge, before 
that we can never know whether it exists or 
does not exist. The outside world will always 

294 



CONCLUSION 

be thought of as the source from which knowl- 
edge comes just because there is growth in 
knowledge. But all that we know is the fact 
that there has been progress in the individual 
and in the race, in the knowledge of the indi- 
vidual and in science as a whole. While we are 
bound to think of the material world as the goal 
toward which all knowledge is tending, we know 
it only in so far as the goal is attained, and 
the material is appreciated as part of our sys- 
tem. 

Very much the same remarks must be made 
of an absolute idealism that would find the goal 
of knowledge in some world of universals, or of 
ideas in the sense of the neo-Hegelians or of 
Plato. This, too, can be only a terminus ad 
quern, it is a concept that explains the fact of 
progress. Its justification is the same as the 
justification of the external world. It has no 
better standing and no worse. It saves the sys- 
tem as we know it from being suspended in air 
and from being independent, but it is at best 
only one way of organizing the fact of progress 
in a larger system. It, too, either is unknown 
or when known ceases by that very fact to be a 
permanent ideal outside the system. Both the 
external world thought of as independent of 
20 295 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEASONING 

being experienced and the world of ideals or 
nniversals regarded as the permanent verities 
that are gradually being revealed in the course 
of experience, individual and racial, can be jus- 
tified only in so far as they serve to unify expe- 
rience. As they unify experience, they become 
part of the system, and in so far no longer per- 
manent entities outside. 

If we ask the more definite question of the 
relation of the system to the concrete human 
mind as it is usually treated psychologically, we 
can find our answer in the statement that the 
mind is just another system of ideas that has 
been gradually developed about a center slightly 
different from that about which the system 
of the external world has crystallized. When 
an attempt was made to understand how the 
individual might know, the answer was given in 
terms of the system of psychology. This sys- 
tem has not been altogether unified with the 
system of the external sciences as is evidenced 
for example by the difficulty in explaining the 
relation of mind to body. Psychology is an 
attempt to explain the facts of experience by 
bringing them into an independent system. In 
the one system an event is a thing, in the other 
system the same event is a sensation, a percep- 

296 



CONCLUSION 

tion or memory. The difference is in the way 
the single event is classified. A perfectly uni- 
tary system would and we hope will unite and 
harmonize the two explanations, but for the 
present they can only be thus referred to two 
systems and the two must be permitted to re- 
main side by side. 

Our system then is at once the actual experi- 
ence of the individual, and it is the actual reality 
of the external world so far as it has been re- 
vealed. It partakes of the nature of the world 
of the realist in so far as it is a stubborn fact 
that can not be changed by mere willing, or by 
any other arbitrary act of the individual. It 
partakes of the nature of the mind of the idealist 
since it is always dependent for its existence on 
the interpretation and appreciation of the indi- 
vidual. Some of the more naive minds seem to 
think that if a thing is made a mental state, that 
it ceases to follow law. One healing cult for 
example disposes of disease as an error of mor- 
tal mind and assumes that it is cured. While 
granted the original premise, it might quite well 
follow that other mental operation like the tak- 
ing of thought pellets and the removing of im- 
agined gangrene from an imaginary member 
may result in an imaginary cure, while the 

297 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EEASOXIXG 

error, if permitted to persist, may necessarily 
extend in thought until the imaginary member 
together with the imagined body is dissipated 
into imaginary space. To call a thing an idea 
does not make it open to change at will. 
Thought laws may be as certain and inflexible 
as the laws of crass matter. On the other hand 
it is occasionally assumed by the popular mind 
that when a thing is called external it is external 
just as it is thought. Needless to say the re- 
sults of the sciences make this view quite as 
untenable. Colors, for example, have given 
place to vibrations, and these to electro-mag- 
netic phenomena in a way that shows that the 
nature of the external object in the nearest ap- 
proach that we can make to it is colored by the 
mind that thinks it. A thing is an external 
object when it is taken up into the system of 
the sciences ; it is a mass of sensations, an idea, 
when taken up into the psychological system. 
What it is out of a system we can not say. 
Whether we call the thing appreciated real or 
ideal seems to me a matter of indifference. The 
experience is the same whatever we call it. As 
long as the ground I walk upon sustains me and 
the food I eat nourishes me it makes no differ- 
ence whether I call it material or call it mental. 

298 



CONCLUSION 

The name does the experience neither good nor 
ill. 

The elements of the system of knowledge are 
real as the things of the sciences and the things 
of common sense are real. They can always be 
relied upon, are in no sense arbitrary. They 
are ideal as the ideas of Kant and Berkeley are 
ideal, because dependent for their nature upon 
being perceived, upon being taken up into the 
whole of knowledge. It is neither external nor 
supra-mental in the literal sense of the terms. 
Whether either the supra-mental or material 
realm exists as it is pictured seems to me a 
matter of indifference, for if they did exist they 
could not be known. At the same time there 
must ever be a partially organized mass of ex- 
periences that will furnish material for system- 
atization. This mass of unorganized material 
will always be partly organized before it is 
organized completely. To explain this partly 
organized mass we are bound to have ever 
with us the hypothesis of an external world or of 
a fixed and eternal world of ideas. Even this 
partial formulation exists, so far as it exists at 
all, only as part of the one unitary system of 
knowledge. 



INDEX 



B 



Absolute time as type, 75. 

Abstract reasoning, 5. 

Abstract qualities, 60. 

Action, Inference as, 193f. 
relation of, to reasoning, 

2, 5f . 
test of belief, 25ff, 55. 

Analogy, 226-231. 
and syllogism, 227. 

Animal reasoning, 1. 

Apperception, 12. 

Appreciation of situation 
the beginning of rea- 
soning, 9. 

Appreciation of space rela- 
tions, judgment not 
inference, 116-120. 

Aristotle, 216. 

Art, belief in, 48ff. 

Art and play, 50f. 

Association, basis of infer- 
ence, 191f. 

Attention as appreciation, 
12. 

Attitude, 12. 



Bain, 25, 28, 31, 55. 
Baldwin, 135. 
Belief, 23-59. 
a social product, 56. 
a test of truth, 23. 
as harmony with experi- 
ence as a whole, 40f, 
52f, 287f. 
as mark of reasoning, 4. 
Conscious quality of, 57ff. 
dependent upon clear and 

distinct ideas, 24. 
established by proof, 13. 
Growth of, 43ff. 
History of, 23-30. 
in dreams, 45ff. 
not arbitrary, 53f. 
primary ; doubt second- 
ary, 25ff. 
unanalysable, 27. 
Bentley, I. M., 78. 
Berkeley, 299. 
Binet, 184. 

Bosanquet, 18, 62f, 64, 71, 
77, 108, 110, 170, 
184, 276. 



301 



INDEX 



Bradley, 18f, 36, 62ff, 64, 
71, 77, 105, 108, 
117f, 112, 147, 158, 
170, 184, 276. 

Brentano, 27f, 31f, 57, 102, 
lllf, 135, 146, 152, 
184. 

Brown, Thomas, 185. 



C 



Cause, as recognition of 
type of connection, 
273ff. 
dependent on coincidences, 
271f. 
Comparison, a single opera- 
tion, 113-116. 
ascription of, typical dif- 
ference, 113. 
character of, dependent 
on purpose, 114. 
Concept, 60-98. 
as type, 71ff. 
and general law com- 
pared, 218. 
Genesis of, 65. 
Physiology of, 69ff. 
Structure of, 92ff. 
the sum of attributes, 
94ff. 
Concept-feeling dependent 
upon association, 67. 
Conception, 15. 



Conclusion, product of as- 
sociation, 188f, 191ff. 

Consciousness, exclusively 
of types, 85-89, 108ff. 

Consistency, basis of belief, 
29. 

Copula, Theories of, 139- 
149. 

" Cortical set," 12. 

D 

Darwin, 195f, 237f. 
Deduction and induction I 

compared, 246f. 
Dewey, 158, 184. 
Disjunctive propositions, 

261-265. 
Disbelief, always belief in 

something, 35f. 
Doubt, 25. 

a positive process, 31ff. 
due to fluctuation of in- 
terpretation, 34f, 42. 
in matters of theory, 37. 
preliminary to all proof, 
267f. 

E 

Einstellung , 75. 
Euler, 142f. 

Evaluation, outcome of cog- 
nition, 123ff. 



302 



INDEX 



dependent upon experi- 
ence, 125-129. 

Mechanism of, 133f. 
Experiment, originates in 
doubt of suggestion, 
197. 

presupposes general prin- 
ciples, 242-245. 

G 

General conclusions as ty- 
pical, 200-205. 

General idea, 71f. 

Genius and insanity, 198. 

Given, The, not conscious 
until appreciated, 1Q7. 

H 

Habit, Relation of, to rea- 
soning, 2, 5, 6. 

Hayden, 74. 

Hegelians, 214. 

Helmholtz, 184. 

Hume, 24, 220. 

Husserl, 18f. 

Hypothetical propositions, 
257-261. 



Idealism, 295f. 
Image and idea, 62f. 



Imagery of types, 83ff. 
Imagination distinguished 
from reasoning, 2ff. 
Inconceivability of opposite, 

220. 
Induction, always presup- 
poses general princi- 
ples, 240ff. 
and deduction compared, 

246f. 
as a process of inference, 

247-254. 
never complete, 238. 
Inductive proof, 236-244. 
Inference, 15, 172-199. 
as action, 193f. 
distinguished from judg- 
ment, 184. 
distinguished from proof, 

187-190. 
related to synthetic judg- 
ment, 178-183. 
Instinct, opposed to reason- 
ing, 2, 5, 6. 



James, 28f, 54, 207. 
Judgment, 99-136. 
Analytic and synthetic, 

compared, 173-178. 
and language, 137-171. 
as appreciation of situa- 
tion, 15f. 



303 



INDEX 



Judgment, as analysis and 

synthesis, 147ff. 
as ascription of meaning, 

102f, 104-110. 
as ascription of two 

meanings, 161-166. 
as assertion of existence, 

146. 
as belief, 102fE. 
as classification, 144f. 
as comparison, lOlf, 113. 
as equation, 140ff. 
as evaluation, 121-134. 
as recognition, 146f. 
as reference to types, 

106-112. 
as subsumption, 142-146. 
considered by formal logic 

out of its setting, 138. 
Definition of, 99f. 
demonstrative, 154-157. 
Formal logic theories of, 

irreconcilable, 149. 
Forms of, compared, 

134ff. 
Impersonal, 152f. 
Interjection al, 151. 
of formal logic, 137-150. 
of perception, 151-171. 
Simple categorical, 157- 

171. 
Terms of, reversible, 

163ff. 



K 

Kant, 184. 

Knowledge, a consistent 
system, 276. 
Development of system 

of, 278-282. 
System of, coextensive 
with consciousness, 
284f. 
Kulpe, 184. 



Language, Thought and, 

289-292. 
Lehmann, 73, 132. 
Leibniz, 23. 
Leuba, 78. 
Logic and psychology, 14, 

19ff. 

M 

Malthus, 195. 

Marbe, 184. 

Marty, 152. 

Meaning, as movement, 91f. 

Meaning and concept, 60- 
98. 
Definition of, 94. 

Memory in relation to rea- 
soning, 2ff. 

Michelson, 242, 



304 



INDEX 



Mill, 18f, 62f, 77, 105, 108, Principle of sufficient rea- 



271. 
Mind and body, Relation 

of, 296f. 
Modality, 255-269. 
Morley, 242. 
Miiller, 75. 

N 

Natural selection, Hypothe- 
sis of, as illustration 
of inference, 194ff. 

Necessity, 266. 

Neo-Hegelian, 71, 77, 84, 
87, 102, 111, 295. 

Newton, 266. 



Particulars in induction al- 
ways types, 238f. 

Pascal, 23, 220. 

Perception and apprecia- 
tion, 13. 

Plato, 23, 216, 295. 

Platonists, 214. 

Play and art, 50f. 

Predicate as meaning, 160. 

Premises, 185ff, 210ft\ 

Premise, Major, effect of, 
to arouse belief, 211- 
215. 

Premises never complete, 
222f. 



son, 23. 

Probability and possibility, 
265f. 
Measurements of, 269f. 

Problems of reasoning, 17. 

Proof, Deductive, as means 
of arousing belief, 
205f. 
the last stage of reason- 
ing, lOf. 

Psychology and logic, 14, 
19ff. 

Psycho-physical parallelism, 
38. 

Purpose, controls the course 
of reasoning, 9. 
gives order to the terms 
in proposition, 166f. 
limits meaning of the con- 
cept, 69. 

Purposes, system of, 285ff. 



B 

Realism, 294f. 

Reasoning, an operation of 
the concrete con- 
sciousness, 18ff. 

Recognition, lacking in rea- 
soning, 4. 

Relations as types, 81ff. 



30~5 



INDEX 



S 



Schumann, 74f. 
Sensation as type, 88f. 
Sigwart, 97, 146f, 164. 
Social control of expression, 

153. 
Stages of reasoning, 9. 
Standards of value, 129- 

133. 
Storring, 119. 
Subject as the given, 158- 

161. 
Sufficient reason, principle 

of, 219. 
Suggestion as solution of 

problem, 10. 
Syllogism, 185ff, 200-226, 

206. 
and analogy, 227-231. 
statement of proof, is not 

inference, 206ff. 



T 



Thomdike, 190, 232. 
Trial and error, a method of 
inference, 188ff. 
Types developed by, 80f. Xilliez, 78. 



Types, Development of, 73- 
80. 

involved in induction and 
deduction both, 251- 
254. 

Particulars in induction 
usually, 238f . 

representative of particu- 
lars, 89ff. 

the only content of con- 
sciousness, 216f. 

U 

Universals, Wor-d of, 63. 

V 

Values dependent upon in- 
stincts, 129f. 

W 

Wallace, 195. 
Woodworth, 93, 115. 
Wundt, 57, 64, 147. 



(l) 



A NEW VIEW OF DEATH. 

The Individual. 

A Study of Life and Death. By Prof. N. S. 
Shaler, of Harvard University. i2mo. Cloth, 
$.1.50. 

Professor Shaler' s book is one of deep and permanent interest. 
In his preface he writes as follows : "In the following chapters 
I propose to approach the question of death from the point of 
view of its natural history, noting, in the first place, how the 
higher organic individuals are related to those of the lower inor- 
ganic realm of the universe. Then, taking up the organic series, 
I shall trace the progressive steps in the perfection of death by a 
determination as to the length of the individual life and its division 
into its several stages from the time when the body of the indi- 
vidual is separated from the general body of the ancestral life to 
that when it returns to the common store of the earth. ... In 
effect this book is a plea for an education as regards the place of 
the individual life in the whole of Nature which shall be consistent 
with what we know of the universe. It is a plea for an under- 
standing of the relations of the person with the realm which is, in 
the fullest sense, his own ; with his fellow-beings of all degrees 
which are his kinsmen ; with the past and the future of which 
he is an integral part. It is a protest against the idea, bred of 
many natural misconceptions, that a human being is something 
apart from its fellows ; that it is born into the world and dies out 
of it into the loneliness of a supernatural realm. It is this sense 
of isolation which, more than all else, is the curse of life and the 
sting of death." 

"Typical of what we call the new religious literature which ii to mark the 
twentieth century. It is pre-eminently serious, tender, and in the truest sense 
Chriitian. ' ' — Springfield Republican. 

" In these profoundly thoughtful pages the organic history of the individual 
min is so presented as to give him a vision of himself undreamed of in a leu 
scientific age. . . . Speaking as a naturalist from study of the facts of Nature, 
Professor Shaler says that these can not be explained ' except on the supposition 
that a mighty kinsman of man is at work behind it all.' " — The Outlook. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY. 



Genetic Psychology for Teachers. 

A New Volume in The International Education Series. 
By Charles Hubbard Judd, Ph.D., Instructor in Psy- 
chology^ Yale University. i2mo. Cloth, $1.20 net. 

This book deals with the facts and the principles of 
mental development. It takes up the special phase of psy- 
chology which is most important to teachers, for it traces 
the changes that are produced in mental life as a result of 
education in its various forms. 

" One almost regrets the word ' Psychology,' " says Primary Educa- 
tion, " in the title of this book, lest it might drive away some teachers 
who might suppose it to be like other psychologies. It is not. It is a 
book of life. It is a scientific study of mental development prepared 
on the teacher's plane, and full of just what teachers should know and 
what they would like to know. The book should not only be in every 
school, but would repay analytical study by principal and teachers in 
weekly teachers' meetings." 

Dr. J. J. Burns, Secretary of the Ohio Teachers' Reading Circle, 
has to say : " I think J udd's ' Genetic Psychology ' a very profitable 
book for students of human nature ; therefore, excellent for teachers 
and for reading circles." 

While Miss Margaret W. Sutherland, of the Columbus Teachers' 
Reading Circle, states that " we have been using Judd's ' Genetic Psy- 
chology ' in the Columbus branch of the Ohio Teachers' Reading Circle 
and have derived much pleasure and profit from it." 

The Story of the Mind. 

A Volume in The Library of Useful Stories. By Prof. 

J. Mark Baldwin. Illustrated. i6mo. Cloth, 35 cents 

net ; postage, 4 cents additional. 

" A little book, easy to hold, pleasant to read, warranted to get read, 
without skippings, to its last word." — The Nation. 

"A healthy interest will be stimulated in psychology on the part 
of those who will carefully read the little volume." 

— The New York Times. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK:, 



MAY 17 1910 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 

MAY Vi n.z 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS t 



020 196 586 A 



